HISTORY 



CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC 



HISTORY 



CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC, 



AND THE WAR OF THE 



NORTH AMERICAN TRIBES 



AGAINST THE 



ENGLISH COLONIES 



AFTER THE 



CONQUEST OF CANADA 



By FRANCIS PARKMAN, Jr. 



; Beesse nobi3 terra, in qu& vivamus ; in qua. moriamur, non potest." 

Tacit. Ann, xiii. 58. 



BOSTON: 

CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN. 
LONDON: RICHARD BE NT LEY, 
1851. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S51, by 
Francis Parkman, Jr., 
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 

e u 



STEREOTYPED AT THE 
OSTON STEREOTYPE FOITNDRY. 



TO 

J A RED SPARKS, LL. D., 

PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, 

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 

AS A TESTIMONIAL OF HIGH PERSONAL REGARD, 

AND A TRIBUTE OF RESPECT 
FOR HIS DISTINGUISHED SERVICES 
TO AMERICAN HISTORY. 



PREFACE. 



The conquest of Canada was an event of moment- 
ous consequence in American history. It changed 
the political aspect of the continent, prepared a way 
for the independence of the British colonies, rescued 
the vast tracts of the interior from the rule of mili- 
tary despotism, and gave them, eventually, to the 
keeping of an ordered democracy. Yet to the red 
natives of the soil its results were wholly disastrous. 
Could the French have maintained their ground, the 
ruin of the Indian tribes might long have been post- 
poned; but the victory of Quebec was the signal of 
their swift decline. Thenceforth they were destined 
to melt and vanish before the advancing waves of 
Anglo-American power, which now rolled westward 
unchecked and unopposed. They saw the danger, 
and, led by a great and daring champion, struggled 
fiercely to avert it. The history of that epoch, 
crowded as it is with scenes of tragic interest, with 
marvels of suffering and vicissitude, of heroism and 
endurance, has been, as yet, unwritten, buried in 
the archives of governments, or among the obscurer 



viii 



PREFACE. 



records of private adventure. To rescue it from ob- 
livion is the object of the following work. It aims 
to portray the American forest and the American In- 
dian at the period when both received their final 
doom. 

It is evident that other study than that of the 
closet is indispensable to success in such an attempt. 
Habits of early reading had greatly aided to pre- 
pare me for the task; but necessary knowledge of a 
more practical kind has been supplied by the indul- 
gence of a strong natural taste, which, at various 
intervals, led me to the wild regions of the north 
and west. Here, by the camp-fire, or in the canoe, 
I gained familiar acquaintance with the men and 
scenery of the wilderness. In 1816, I visited various 
primitive tribes of the Rocky Mountains, and was, 
for a time, domesticated in a village of the western 
Dahcotah, on the high plains between Mount Laramie 
and the range of the Medicine Bow. 

The most troublesome part of the task was the 
collection of the necessary documents. These con- 
sisted of letters, journals, reports, and despatches, 
scattered among numerous public offices, and private 
families, in Europe and America. When brought to- 
gether, they amounted to about three thousand four 
hundred manuscript pages. Contemporary newspa- 
pers, magazines, and pamphlets have also been ex- 
amined, and careful search made for every book 
which, directly or indirectly, might throw light upon 
the subject. I have visited the sites of all the 



PREFACE, 



ix 



principal events recorded in the narrative, and gath- 
ered such local traditions as seemed worthy of con- 
fidence. 

I am indebted to the liberality of Hon. Lewis 
Cass for a curious collection of papers relating to 
the siege of Detroit by the Indians. Other impor- 
tant contributions have been obtained from the state 
paper offices of London and Paris, from the archives 
of New York, Pennsylvania, and other states, and 
from the manuscript collections of several historical 
societies. The late William L. Stone, Esq, com- 
menced an elaborate biography of Sir William John- 
son, which it is much to be lamented he did not 
live to complete. By the kindness of Mrs. Stone, I 
was permitted to copy from his extensive collection 
of documents, such portions as would serve the pur- 
poses of the following History. 

To President Sparks of Harvard University, Gen- 
eral Whiting, U. S. A., Brant z Mayer, Esq. of Balti- 
more, Francis J. Fisher, Esq. of Philadelphia, and 
Eev. George E. Ellis of Charlestown, I beg to return 
a warm acknowledgment for counsel and assistance. 
Mr. Benjamin Perley Poore and Mr. Henry Stevens 
procured copies of valuable documents from the ar- 
chives of Paris and London. Henry R. Schoolcraft, 
Esq., Dr. Elwyn of Philadelphia, Dr. O'Callaghan of 
Albany, George H. Moore, Esq. of New York, Ly- 
man C. Draper, Esq. of Philadelphia, Judge Law of 
Vincennes, and many others, have kindly contributed 
materials to the work. Nor can I withhold an 

B 



X 



PREFACE. 



expression of thanks to the aid so freely rendered 
in the dnll task of proof-reading and correction. 

The crude and promiscuous mass of materials pre- 
sented an aspect by no means inviting. The field of 
the history was uncultured and unreclaimed, and the 
labor that awaited me was like that of the border 
settler, who, before he builds his rugged dwelling, 
must fell the forest-trees, burn the undergrowth, clear 
the ground, and hew the fallen trunks to due pro- 
portion. 

Several obstacles have retarded the progress of the 
work. Of these, one of the most considerable was 
the condition of my sight, seriously, though not per- 
manently, impaired. For about three years, the light 
of day was insupportable, and every attempt at read- 
ing or writing completely debarred. Under these cir- 
cumstances, the task of sifting the materials and 
composing the work was begun and finished. The 
papers were repeatedly read aloud by an amanuensis^ 
copious notes and extracts were made, and the narra- 
tive written down from my dictation. This process, 
though extremely slow and laborious, was not with- 
out its advantages ; and I am well convinced that the 
authorities have been even more minutely examined, 
more scrupulously collated, and more thoroughly di- 
gested, than they would have been under ordinary 
circumstances. 

In order to escape the tedious circumlocution, 
which, from the nature of the subject, could not 
otherwise have been avoided, the name English is 



PREFACE. 



xi 



applied, throughout the volume, to the British Ameri- 
can colonists, as well as to the people of the mother 
country. The necessity is somewhat to be regretted, 
since, even at an early period, clear distinctions were 
visible between the offshoot and the parent stock. 



Boston, August 1, 1851. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Introductory. — Indian Tribes East of the Mississippi. 



PAGE 


PAGE 


General Characteristics . 


1 


The Tuscaroras . 


24 


Tribal Divisions . 


2 


Superiority of the Iroquois Race 


24 


Mode of Government 


2 


The Algonquins . 


25 


Social Harmony . 


3 


The Lenni Lenape . 


26 


The Totem .... 


4 


Their changing Fortunes . 


27 


Classification of Tribes 


5 


The Shawanoes 


28 


The Iroquois .... 


6 


mi TIT* * 1 , 1 Tiv 

The Miamis and the Illinois 


29 


Their Position and Character 


7 


The Ojibwas, Pottawattamies, 




Their Political Organization . 


8 


and Ottawas 


30 


Traditions of their Confederacy 


11 


The Sacs and Foxes 


30 


Their Myths and Legends 


12 


The Menomonies and Kniste- 




Their Eloquence and Sagacity 


13 


neaux .... 


30 


Arts — Agriculture . 


14 


Customs of the Northern Al- 




Their Dwellings, Villages, and 




gonquins .... 


ol 


Forts 


14 


Their Summer and Winter Life 


31 


Their Winter Life 


16 


Legends of the Algonquins 


33 


The War Path 


16 


Religious Faith of the Indians 


34 


Festivals and Pastimes 


18 


The Indian Character 


35 


Pride of the Iroquois 


18 


Its Inconsistencies 


36 


The Hurons or Wyandots . 


19 


Its Ruling Passions 


36 


Their Customs and Character . 


20 


Pride — Hero-worship . 


37 


Their Dispersion ... 


21 


Coldness, Jealousy, Suspicion 


37 


The Neutral Nation — Its Fate 


21 


Self-control . 


38 


The Eries and Andastes . 


22 


Intellectual Traits . 


38 


Triumphs of the Confederacy 


22 


Inflexibility .... 


39 


The Adoption of Prisoners 


23 


Generous Qualities . 


39 


CHAPTER II. 




France and 


England in America. 




Contrast of French and Eng- 




Feudalism in Canada . 


42 


lish Colonies 


41 


Priests and Monks „ 

h 


42 



xiv 



CONTEXTS. 



Puritanism and Democracy in 




La Salle .... 


51 


New England . . . 


42 


His Plan of Discovery . 


51 


French Life in Canada 


43 


His Sufferings — His Heroism 


52 


Military Strength of Canada . 


44 


He discovers the Mouth of the 




Religious Zeal . 


45 


Mississippi 


54 


Missions — The Jesuits . 


46 


Louisiana .... 


55 


Brebeuf and Lallemant 


47 


France in the West 


56 


Martyrdom of Jogues 


48 


Growth of English Colonies . 


56 


Results of the Missions 


49 


Approaching Collision . 


57 


French Explorers . 


50 






CHAPTER III. 




The French, the 


English, and the Indians. 




Champlain defeats the Iroquois 


59 


The White Savage . 


70 


The Iroquois Wars 


60 


The English Fur-trader . 


71 


Misery of Canada 


61 


William Perm and his Eulo- 




Expedition of Frontenac 


61 


gists 


71 


Success of the French . 


63 


The Indians and the Quakers 


72 


French Influence in the West 


63 


Injustice of Perm's Successors 


73 


La Verandrye .... 


63 


The Walking Purchase . 


75 


The English Fur-trade 


64 


Speech of Canassatego 


76 


Protestant and Romish Missions 


65 


Removal of the Delawares 


77 


The English and the Iroquois 


65 


Intrusion of Settlers . 


77 


Policy of the French 


66 


Success of French Intrigues . 


73 


The Frenchman in the Wig- 




Father Picquet . 


79 


wam .... 


69 


Sir William Johnson 


80 


Coureurs des Bois . 


69 


Position of Parties 


83 


CHAPTER IV. 




Collision of 


THE 


Rival Colonies. 




The Puritan and the Canadian 


85 


Alarm of the Indians 


90 


Fort Frederic 


85 


Congress at Albany 


91 


Acadia 


86 


French and English Diplomacy 


91 


The French on the Ohio 


86 


Braddock and Dieskau 


92 


Mission of Washington . 


87 


Naval Engagement . 


92 


Trent driven from the Ohio . 


83 


The War in Europe and America 


93 


Death of Jumonville 


89 


Braddock in Virginia 


94 


Skirmish at the Great Mead- 




March of his Army 


95 


ows . . . 


89 


Beaujeu at Fort du Quesne 


96 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



Ambuscade at the Monongahela 99 
Rout of Braddock . . .100 
Its Consequences . . 102 
Acadia, Niagara, and Crown 

Point 102 

Battle of Lake George . 103 
Prosecution of the War . . 107 
Oswego — Fort William Henry 109 
StoiToing of Ticonderoga . 110 
State of Canada . . . Ill 
Plans for its Reduction . . 112 



Progress of the English Arms 112 

Wolfe before Quebec . .113 

Assault at Montmorenci . .115 

Heroism of Wolfe . . 117 

The Heights of Abraham . 119 

Battle of Quebec . . 121 

Death of Wolfe . . .123 

Death of Montcalm . . 124 

Surrender of Quebec . . 125 

Fall of Canada . . .126 



CHAPTER V. 



The Wilderness and its Tenants at the Close of the 
French War. 



Sufferings of the Frontier . 127 
Treaties with the Western 

Tribes .... 127 
Christian Frederic Post . . 128 
The Iroquois . . .130 
The remote Tribes . . . 131 
The Forest .... 131 
Indian Population . . . 132 
Condition of the Tribes . 133 
Onondaga .... 133 
The Dela wares and neighbor- 
ing Tribes .... 134 
Their Habits and Condition 134 



The Shawanoes, Miamis, Illi- 
nois, and Wyandots . . 134 
English Settlements . . 135 
Forest Thoroughfares . . 135 
Fur-traders — Their Habits 

and Character . . . 136 

The Forest Traveller . . 137 

The French at the Illinois . 139 

Military Life in the Forest . 140 

The Savage and the European 140 

Hunters and Trappers . . 141 

Civilization and Barbarism . 142 



CHAPTER VI. 
The English take Possession of the Western Posts. 



The victorious Armies at Mon- 
treal 144 

Major Robert Rogers . . 144 
His Expedition up the Lakes . 147 
His Meeting with Pontiac . 148 
Ambitious Views of Pontiac . 149 



He befriends the English . 149 
The English take Possession 

of Detroit . . .151 
Of other French Posts . . 152 
British Power Predominant m 

the West . . . .152 



xvi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 
Anger of the Indians. — The Conspiracy. 



Discontent of the Tribes 


153 


Gloomy Prospects of the Indian 




Impolitic Course of the English 154 


Race 


163 


Disorders of the Fur-trade 


155 


Designs of Pontiac 


IRA 
104 


Military Insolence 


155 


His War Messengers 


165 


Intrusion of Settlers 


156 


Tribes engaged in the Con- 




French Intrigue . 


157 


spiracy .... 


166 


The Delaware Prophet . 


158 


Dissimulation of the Indians . 


167 


An abortive Plot . 


160 


The War-belt among the Mi- 




Pontiac's Conspiracy- 


161 


amis . . . 


167 


Character of Pontiac . 


161 






CHAPTER VIII. 




Indian Pre 


PARATION. 




The Indians as a military Peo- 




The Peace of Paris 


173 


ple . . . "V 1 


169 


Royal Proclamation 




Their inefficient Organization 


169 


The War-chief. His Fasts and 




Their insubordinate Spirit 


170 


Vigils .... 


174 


Their Improvidence 


171 


The War-feast. The War- 




Policy of the Indian Leaders . 


171 


dance 


175 


Difficulties of Forest Warfare 


172 


Departure of the Warriors . 


175 


Defenceless Condition of the 




The Bursting of the Storm 


176 


Colonies .... 


172 




CHAPTER IX. 




The Council 


at the River Ecorces. 




Pontiac musters his Warriors . 


177 


Allegory of the Delaware . 


180 


They assemble at the River 




The Council dissolves 


184 


Ecorces . 


177 


Calumet Dance at Detroit . 


185 


The Council 


178 


Plan to surprise the Garrison . 


186 


Speech of Pontiac . 


179 





CONTENTS. 



xvii 



CHAPTER X. 



Detroit. 



Strange Phenomenon 


187 


Suspicious Conduct of the In- 




Origin and History of Detroit 


188 


dians . . . . 


192 


Its Condition in 1763 


188 


Catharine, the Ojibwa Girl . 


193 


Character of its Inhabitants . 


189 


She reveals the Plot 


194 


French Life at Detroit . 


189 


Precautions of the Command- 




The Fort and Garrison 


190 


ant 


194 


Pontiac at Isle a la Peche 


191 


A Night of Anxiety 


195 


CHAPTER XI. 




Treachery 


of Pontiac. 




The Morning of the Council . 


197 


Pontiac throws off the Mask . 


204 


Pontiac enters the Fort 


198 


Ferocity of his Warriors 




Address and Courage of the 




The Ottawas cross the River . 


206 


Commandant 


199 


Fate of Davers and Robertson 


207 


The Plot defeated 


200 


General Attack 


207 


The Chiefs suffered to escape . 


201 


A Truce . . . . 


209 


Indian Idea of Honor . 


202 


Major Campbell's Embassy 


210 


Pontiac again visits the Fort . 


203 


He is made Prisoner by Pon- 




False Alarm 


203 


tiac 


213 


CHAPTER XII. 




Pontiac at 


THE S 


iege of Detroit. 




The Christian Wyandots join 




He exacts Provision from the 




Pontiac . . 


215 


French 


224 


Peril of the Garrison 


216 


He appoints Commissaries . 


224 


Indian Courage . . . 


217 


He issues Promissory Notes . 


225 


The English threatened with 




His Acuteness and Sagacity 


225 


Famine . . . 


219 


His Authority over his Fol- 




Pontiac's Council with the 




lowers 


226 


French . . . 


220 


His Magnanimity 


227 


His Speech .... 


221 






C 




b* 





XVI 11 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Rout of Cuyler's Detachment. 

Reenforcement sent to Detroit 229 
Attack on the Schooner . . 230 
Relief at Hand ... 231 
Disappointment of the Garrison 231 
Escape of Prisoners . . 232 
Cuyler's Defeat . . . 234 
[ndian Debauch . . . 235 
Fate of the Captives . . 236 
Capture of Fort Sandusky . 238 



Fate of the Forest Garrisons. 

Strength of the Besiegers . 239 

Capture of Fort St. Joseph . 240 
Capture of Fort Michillimack- 

inac .... 242 

Capture of Fort Ouatanon . 243 

Capture of Fort Miami . 244 

Defence of Fort Presqu'Isle . 246 

Its Capture ... 249 



CHAPTER XIV. 



The Indians continue to Blockade Detroit. 



Attack on the armed Vessel . 252 
News of the Treaty of Paris 253 
Pontiac summons the Garrison 255 
Council at the Ottawa Camp 255 
Disappointment of Pontiac . 257 
He is joined by the Coureurs 
des Bois .... 258 



Sortie of the Garrison . 260 
Death of Major Campbell . 260 
Attack on Pontiac's Camp . 262 
Fire Rafts . . . .263 
The Wyandots and Pottawat- 
tamies beg for Peace . 265 



CHAPTER XV. 
The Fight at Bloody Bridge. 



Dalzell's Detachment . . 267 
Dalzell reaches Detroit . 269 
Stratagem of the Wyandots . 269 
Night Attack on Pontiac's 

Camp 270 

Indian Ambuscade . . 271 
Retreat of the English . . 273 



Terror of Dalzell's Troops 274 

Death of Dalzell . . .275 

Defence of Campau's House 276 

Grant conducts the Retreat . 276 

Exultation of the Indians . 278 
Defence of the Schooner Glad- 

wyn .... 279 



CONTENTS. 



xix 



CHAPTER XVI. 



MlCHIELIMACKINAC. 



The Voyager on the Lakes 


282 


Disposition of the Indians 


291 


Michillimackinac in 1763 . 


283 


The Ojibwa War-chief . 


291 


Green Bay and Ste. Marie 


284 


Ambassadors from Pontiac 


292 


The Northern Wilderness . 


2S4 


Sinister Designs of the Ojibwas 


292 


Tribes of the Lakes 


285 


Warnings of Danger 


293 


Adventures of a Trader 


286 


Wawatam .... 


293 


Speech of Minavavana . 


288 


Eve of the Massacre 


295 


Arrival of English Troops . 


290 






CHAPTER XVII. 




T 


he Massacre. 




The King's Birthday 


296 


He is rescued by Wawatam . 


311 


Heedlessness of the Garrison 


297 


Cannibalism 




Indian Ball-play 


297 


Panic among the Conquerors . 


314 


The Stratagem . 


298 


, They retire to Mackinaw 


314 


Slaughter of the Soldiers 


298 


The Island of Mackinaw 


314 


Escape of Alexander Henry 


299 


Indian Carouse . 


316 


His appalling Situation . 


301 


Famine among the Indians 


316 


His Hiding-place discovered 


304 


They disperse to their Winter- 




Survivors of the Massacre 


306 


ing Grounds 


317 


Plan of retaking the Fort . 


306 


Green Bay. The neighboring 




Adventures of Henry 


307 


Tribes . . . 


317 


Unexpected Behavior of the 




Gorell. His Address and Pru- 




Ottawas . 


308 


dence 


318 


They take Possession of the 




He conciliates the Indians . 


319 


Fort . . . 


309 


He abandons Green Bay . 


321 


Their Council with the Ojibwas 


309 


The English driven from the 




Henry and his Fellow-prisoners 


311 


Upper Lakes . 


322 


CHAPTER XVIII. 




Frontier Forts 


axd Settlements. 




Extent of British Settlements 




Forts and Military Routes . 


324 


in 1763 . 


323 


Fort Pitt 


324 



XX 



CONTENTS. 



The Pennsylvania Frontier . 326 

Alarms at Fort Pitt. . .327 

Escape of Calhoun . . 328 

Slaughter of Traders . . 328 

Fort Ligonier. Fort Bedford 331 

Situation of Fort Pitt . . 332 

Indian Advice . . . 333 

Reply of Ecuyer . . .334 



News from Presqu'Isle . . 335 

Fate of Le Boeuf . . 336 

Fate of Venango . . .337 

Danger of Fort Pitt . . 338 

Council with the Delawares . 339 

Threats of the Commandant 341 

General Attack . . 342 



CHAPTER XIX. 
The War on the Borders. 



Panic among the Settlers . 344 
Feeble Resources of the Eng- 
lish 345 

Measures of Defence . . 346 
Alarm at Carlisle . . .347 



Scouting Parties . . . 347 
Ambuscade on the Tuscarora . 348 
The dying Borderer . . 349 
Scenes at Carlisle . . . 350 



CHAPTER XX. 



The 


Battle 


of Bushy Run. 




The Army of Bouquet . 


. 352 


The Night Encampment 


360 


Dangers of his Enterprise 


. 353 


The Fight resumed . 


. 362 


His Character . 


. 354 


Conflict of the second Day . 


363 


Fort Ligonier relieved . 


. 356 


Successful Stratagem 


. 364 


Bouquet at Fort Bedford . 


. 356 


Rout of the Indians 


365 


March of his Troops . 


. 357 


Bouquet reaches Fort Pitt 


. 367 


Unexpected Attack . 


. 358 


Effects of the Victory . 


368 



CHAPTER XXI. 
The Iroqjjois. — Ambuscade of the Devil's Hole. 



Congress of Iroquois . . 370 
Effect of Johnson's Influence 371 
Incursions into New York . 372 
False Alarm at Goshen . 372 



The Niagara Portage . . 373 

The Convoy attacked . . 374 

Second Attack . . .375 

Disaster on Lake Erie . . 377 



CONTENTS. 



xxi 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Desolation of the Frontiers. 



Virginian Backwoodsmen . 378 

Frontiers of Virginia . . 379 

Population of Pennsylvania . 380 

Distress of the Settlers . 381 

Attack on Greenbrier . . 383 

A captive Amazon . . 384 

Attack on a School-house . 385 

Sufferings of Captives . . 387 

The escaped Captive . . 388 

Feeble Measures of Defence 390 



John Elder . . . . 391 

Virginian Militia . . . 392 

Courage of the Borderers . 393 

Encounter with a War-party . 394 

Armstrong's Expedition . 395 

Slaughter at Wyoming . . 396 

Quaker Prejudice . . 397 

Gage assumes the Command . 398 

Political Disputes . . 399 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
The Indians raise the Siege of Detroit. 



The Besiegers ask for Peace . 401 
A Truce granted . . . 402 
Letter from Neyon to Pontiac . 403 
Autumn at Detroit . . 404 



Indians at their Wintering 

Grounds .... 405 
Iroquois War-parties . . 406 
The War in the South . . 407 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
The Paxton Men. 



Desperation of the Borderers . 409 
Effects of Indian Hostilities 411 
The Conestoga Band . .411 
Paxton . . . .412 
Matthew Smith and his Com- 
panions . ; . .413 
Massacre of the Conestogas . 414 
Further Designs of the Rioters 416 



Remonstrance of Elder . 417 

Massacre in Lancaster Jail . 417 

State of public Opinion . 420 

Lazarus Stewart . . . 421 

The Moravian Converts . 421 

Their Retreat to Philadelphia . 424 

Their Reception by the Mob 425 



CHAPTER XXV. 

The Rioters march on Philadelphia. 

Excitement of the Borderers . 426 Alarm of the Quakers . . 429 
Their Designs . . . 428 The Converts sent to New York 430 



xxii 



CONTEXTS. 



The Converts forced to return 43 
Quakers and Presbyterians . 433 
Warlike Preparation . . 434 
Excitement in the City . . 435 
False Alarm ... 436 



Paxton Men at Gerraantown . 437 

Negotiations with the Rioters 438 

Frontiersmen in Philadelphia . 440 

Paper Warfare . . . 441 

Memorials of the Paxton Men 443 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
Bradstreet's Army on the Lakes. 



Memorials on Indian Affairs . 446 
Character of Bradstreet . 448 
Departure of the Army . . 449 
Concourse of Indians at Niagara 450 
Indian Oracle .... 451 
Temper of the Indians . 455 
Insolence of the Delawares and 

Shawanoes .... 456 
Treaty with the Senecas . 456 
Ottawas and Menomonies . 457 
Bradstreet leaves Niagara . 459 
Henry's Indian Battalion . . 460 
Pretended Embassy . . 461 



Presumption of Bradstreet . 462 
Indians of Sandusky . . 464 
Bradstreet at Detroit . . 465 
Council with the Chiefs of De- 
troit 466 

Terms of the Treaty . . 467 
Strange Conduct of Bradstreet 468 

Michillimackinac reoccupied . 469 

Embassy of Morris . . 469 

Bradstreet at Sandusky . . 475 

Return of the Army . . 476 

Results of the Expedition . 477 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



Bouquet forces the Delawares and Shawanoes to sue for 

Peace. 



Renewal of Indian Ravages . 


479 


The English Camp . 


494 


David Owens, the White Sav- 




Letter from Bradstreet . 


495 


age 


480 


Desperate Purpose of the Shaw- 




Advance of Bouquet . 


482 


anoes . . . 


496 


His Message to the Delawares 483 


Peace Council 


498 


The March of his Army . 


485 


Delivery of English Prisoners . 


502 


Pie reaches the Muskingum . 


486 


Situation of Captives among 




Terror of the Enemy 


487 


the Indians .... 


507 


Council with the Indians 


488 


Their Reluctance to return to 




Speech of the Delaware Orator 489 


the Settlements 


508 


Reply of Bouquet . 


491 


The Forest Life . 


508 


Its Effect .... 


493 


Return of the Expedition 


511 



CONTENTS, 



xxiii 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



The Illinois. 



Boundaries of the Illinois . 


513 


Its early Colonization . 


517 


The Missouri. The Mississippi 513 


Creoles of the Illinois 


519 


Plants and Animals of the Illi- 




Its Indian Population . 


521 


nois 


515 






CHAPTER XXIX. 




PONTIAC RALLIES THE WESTERN TRIBES. 




Cession of French Territory in 




His great War-belt . 


530 


the West . 


522 


Repulse of Loftus 


531 


St. Louis .... 


523 


The English on the Mississippi 


533 


St. Ange de Bellerive 


524 


New Orleans in 1765 . 


534 


Designs of Pontiac 


526 


Pontiac's Embassy at New Or- 




His French Allies . 


527 


leans . ... 


536 


He visits the Illinois . 


529 






CHAPTER XXX. 




Ruin of 


THE 


Indian Cause. 




Mission of Croghan 


539 


Croghan at Ouatanon 


553 


Plunder of the Caravan 


540 


His Meeting with Pontiac . 


552 


Exploits of the Borderers 


542 


Pontiac offers Peace 


553 


Congress at Fort Pitt . 


545 


Croghan reaches Detroit 


553 


Fraser's Discomfiture 


546 


Conferences at Detroit . 


554 


Distress of the hostile Indians 


547 


Peace Speech of Pontiac 


556 


Pontiac. His desperate Po- 




Results of Croghan's Mission . 


558 


sition 


549 


The English take Possession 




Croghan's Party attacked 


550 


of the Illinois . 


559 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Death of Pontiac. 

Effects of the Peace . . 560 Congress at Oswego . . 562 
Pontiac repairs to Oswego . 560 Speech of Sir William Johnson 563 



xxiv 



CONTEXTS. 



Reply of Pontiac . . . 565 The Village of Cahokia . 569 

Prospects of the Indian Race 566 Assassination of Pontiac . . 571 

Fresh Disturbances . . 567 Vengeance of his Followers 571 
Pontiac visits St. Louis . . 568 



APPENDIX. 

A. — The Iroquois. — Extent of their Conquests. — Policy pur- 
sued TOWARDS THEM BY THE FRENCH AND THE ENGLISH. — MEASURES 

of Sir William Johnson. 

1. Territory of the Iroquois ... .... 575 

2. French and English Policy towards the Iroquois. Measures of 

Sir William Johnson 576 

B. — Causes of the Indian War. 

1. Views of Sir William Johnson . . . . . . . 579 

2. Tragedy of Ponteach 581 

C. — Detroit and Michillimackinac. 

1. The Siege of Detroit 588 

2. Massacre of Michillimackinac 596 

D. — The War on the Borders. 
The Battle of Bushy Run 598 

E. — The Paxton Riots. 

1. Evidence against the Indians of Conestoga 602 

2. Proceedings of the Rioters 603 

3. Memorials of the Paxton Men 613 

F. — The Campaign of 1764. 

1. Bouquet's Expedition 620 

2. Condition and Temper of the Western Indians . . . 622 



HISTORY 

OF THE 

CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY. — INDIAN TRIBES EAST OF THE 
MISSISSIPPI. 

The Indian is a true child of the forest and the 
desert. The wastes and solitudes of nature are his 
congenial home. His haughty mind is imbued with 
the spirit of the wilderness, and the light of civiliza- 
tion falls on him with a blighting power. His unruly 
pride and untamed freedom are in harmony with the 
lonely mountains, cataracts, and rivers among which 
he dwells ; and primitive America, with her savage 
scenery and savage men, opens to the imagination a 
boundless world, unmatched in wild suF'mity. 

The Indians east of the Mississippi may be divided 
into several great families, each distinguished by a 
radical peculiarity of language. In their moral and 
intellectual, their social and political state, these va- 
rious families exhibit strong shades of distinction ; but, 
before pointing them out, I shall indicate a few promi- 
nent characteristics, which, faintly or distinctly, mark 
the whole in common. 



2 



INDIAN TRIBES. 



[Chap. I. 



All are alike a race of hunters, sustaining life wholly, 
or in part, by the fruits of the chase. Each family is 
split into tribes; and these tribes, by the exigencies 
of the hunter life, are again divided into sub-tribes, 
bands, or villages, often scattered far asunder, over a 
wide extent of wilderness. Unhappily for the strength 
and harmony of the Indian race, each tribe is prone to 
regard itself, not as the member of a great whole, but 
as a sovereign and independent nation, often arrogat- 
ing to itself an importance superior to all the rest 
of mankind ; 1 and the warrior whose petty horde might 
muster a few scores of half-starved fighting men, strikes 
his hand upon his heart, and exclaims, in all the pride 
of patriotism, " I am a 3fenomone" 

In an Indian community, each man is his own 
master. He abhors restraint, and owns no other au- 
thority than his own capricious will ; and yet this wild 
notion of liberty is not inconsistent with certain gra- 
dations of rank and influence. Each tribe has its 
sachem, or civil chief, whose office is in a manner he- 
reditary, and, among many, though by no means among 
all tribes, descends in the female line; so that the 
brother of the incumbent, or the son of his sister, and 
not his own son, is the rightful successor to his digni- 
ties. 2 If, however, in the opinion of the old men and 
subordinate chiefs, the heir should be disqualified for 
the exercise of the office by cowardice, incapacity, or 
any defect of character, they do not scruple to discard 

1 Many Indian tribes bear names 2 The dread of female infidelity 

which in their dialect signify men, has been assigned, and with probable 

indicating that the character belongs, truth, as the origin of this custom. 

par excellence, to them. Sometimes The sons of a chief's sister must 

the word was used by itself, and necessarily be his kindred; though 

sometimes an adjective was joined his own reputed son may be, in fact, 

with it, as original men, men sur- the offspring of another. 
passing all others. 



Chap. I.] THEIR PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS. 



3 



him, and elect another in his place, usually fixing their 
choice on one of his relatives. The office of the sa- 
chem is no enviable one. He has neither laws to ad- 
minister nor power to enforce his commands. His 
counsellors are the inferior chiefs and principal men 
of the tribe ; and he never sets himself in opposition 
to the popular will, which is the sovereign power of 
these savage democracies. His province is to advise, 
and not to dictate ; but, should he be a man of energy, 
talent, and address, and especially should he be sup- 
ported by numerous relatives and friends, he may often 
acquire no small measure of respect and power. A 
clear distinction is drawn between the civil and mili- 
tary authority, though both are often united in the 
same person. The functions of war-chief may, for the 
most part, be exercised by any one whose prowess and 
reputation are sufficient to induce the young men to 
follow him to battle ; and he may, whenever he thinks 
proper, raise a band of volunteers, and go out against 
the common enemy. 

We might imagine that a society so loosely framed 
would soon resolve itself into anarchy; yet this is 
not the case, and an Indian village is singularly free 
from wranglings and petty strife. Several causes con- 
spire to this result. The necessities of the hunter life, 
preventing the accumulation of large communities, 
make more stringent organization needless; while a 
species of self-control, inculcated from childhood upon 
every individual, enforced by a sentiment of dignity and 
manhood, and greatly aided by the peculiar tempera- 
ment of the race, tends strongly to the promotion of 
harmony. Though he owns no law, the Indian is in- 
flexible in his adherence to ancient usages and cus- 
toms ; and the principle of hero-worship, which belongs 



4 



TOTEMSHIP. 



[Chap. I. 



to his nature, inspires him with deep respect for the 
sages and captains of his tribe. The very rudeness of 
his condition, and the absence of the passions which 
wealth, luxury, and the other incidents of civilization 
engender, are favorable to internal harmony; and to 
the same cause must likewise be ascribed too many of 
his virtues, which would quickly vanish, were he ele- 
vated from his savage state. 

A peculiar social institution exists among the In- 
dians, highly curious in its character ; and though I 
am not prepared to say that it may be traced through 
all the tribes east of the Mississippi, yet its prevalence 
is so general, and its influence on political relations 
so important, as to claim especial attention. Indian 
communities, independently of their local distribution 
into tribes, bands, and villages, are composed of several 
distinct clans. Each clan has its emblem, consisting 
of the figure of some bird, beast, or reptile ; and each 
is distinguished by the name of the animal which it 
thus bears as its device ; as, for example, the clan of the 
Wolf, the Deer, the Otter, or the Hawk. In the lan- 
guage of the Algonquins, these emblems are known by 
the name of Totems. 1 The members of the same clan, 
being connected, or supposed to be so, by ties of kin- 
dred, more or less remote, are prohibited from inter- 
marriage. Thus Wolf cannot marry Wolf; but he 

1 Schoolcraft, Oneota, 172. The word tribe, might, perhaps, 

The extraordinary figures intend- have been employed with as much 

ed to represent tortoises, deer, propriety as that of clan, to indicate 

snakes, and other animals, which are the totemic division ; but as the for- 

oflen seen appended to Indian trea- mer is constantly employed to repre- 

ties, are the totems of the chiefs, sent the local or political divisions 

who employ these devices of their of the Indian race, hopeless confu- 

respective clans as their sign manual, sion would arise from using it in a 

The device of his clan is also some- double capacity, 
times tattoed on the body of the 
v/arrior. 



Chap. I.] GENERIC DIVISIONS. 5 

may, if he chooses, take a wife from the clan of Hawks, 
or any other clan but his own. It follows that when 
this prohibition is rigidly observed, no single clan can 
live apart from the rest ; but the whole must be 
mingled together, and in every family the husband 
and wife must be of different clans. 

To different totems attach different degrees of rank 
and dignity; and those of the Bear, the Tortoise, and 
the Wolf are among the first hi honor. Each man is 
proud of his badge, jealously asserting its claims to 
respect; and the members of the same clan, though 
they may, perhaps, speak different dialects, and dwell 
far asunder, are yet bound together by the closest ties 
of fraternity. If a man is killed, every member of the 
clan feels called upon to avenge him ; and the way- 
farer, the hunter, or the warrior is sure of a cordial 
welcome in the distant lodge of the clansman whose 
face perhaps he has never seen. It may be added 
that certain privileges, highly prized as hereditary 
rights, sometimes reside in particular clans; such as 
that of furnishing a sachem to the tribe, or of per-, 
forming certain religious ceremonies or magic rites/ 

The Indians east of the Mississippi may be divided 
into three great families ; the Iroquois, the Algonquin, 
and the Mobilian, each speaking a language of its own, 
varied by numerous dialectic forms. To these families 
must be added a few stragglers from the great western 
race of the Dahcotah, besides several distinct tribes of 
the south, each of which has been regarded as speaking 
a tongue peculiar to itself. 1 The Mobilian group em- 
braces the motley confederacy of the Creeks, the crafty 
Choctaws, and the stanch and warlike Chickasaws. Of 

1 For an ample view of these divisions, see the Synopsis of Mr. Gal- 
latin, Trans. Am. Ant. Soc. II. 



6 



THE IEOQUOIS. 



[Chap. I. 



these, and of the distinct tribes dwelling in their vi- 
cinity, or within their limits, I shall only observe 
that they offer, with many modifications, and under 
different aspects, the same essential features which 
mark the Iroquois and the Algonquins, the two great 
families of the north. 1 The latter, who were the con- 
spicuous actors in the events of the ensuing narrative, 
demand a closer attention. 

THE IROQUOIS FAMILY. 

Foremost in war, foremost in eloquence, foremost in 
their savage arts of policy, stood the fierce people called 
by themselves the Hodenosaimee, and by the French 
the Iroquois, a name which has since been applied to 
the entire family of which they formed the doixhnant 
member. 2 They extended their conquests and their 
depredations from Quebec to the • Carolinas, and from 
the western prairies to the forests of Maine. 3 On the 



1 It appears from several passages 
in the writings of Adair, Hawkins, 
and others, that the totem prevailed 
among the southern tribes. In a 
conversation with the late Albert 
Gallatin, he informed me that he was 
told by the chiefs of a Choctaw 
deputation, at Washington, that in 
their tribe were eight totemic clans, 
divided into two classes, of four each. 
It is very remarkable that the same 
number of clans, and the same di- 
vision into classes, were to be found 
among the Five Nations, or Iroquois. 

~ A great difficulty in the study 
of Indian history arises from a redun- 
dancy of names employed to designate 
the same tribe ; yet this does not pre- 
vent the same name from being often 
used to designate two or more differ- 
ent tribes. The following are the 
chief of those which are applied to the 



Iroquois by different writers, French, 
English, and German: — 

Iroquois, Five, and afterwards Six 
Nations: Confederates, Hodenosau- 
nee, Aquanuscioni, Aggonnonshioni, 
Ongwe Honwe, Mengwe, Maquas, 
Mahaquase, Massawomecs, Palenach 
endchiesktajeet. 

The name of Massawomees has 
been applied to several tribes; and 
that of Mingoes is often restricted 
to a colony of the Iroquois which 
established itself near the Ohio. 

3 Francois, a well-known Indian 
belonging to the remnant of the Pe- 
nobscots living at Old Town, in 
Maine, told me, in the summer of 
1843, that a tradition was current, 
among his people, of their being 
attacked in ancient times by the 
Mohawks, or, as he called them, Mo- 
hogs, a tribe of the Iroquois, who de- 



Chap. I.] THE IROQUOIS. 7 

south, they forced tribute from the subjugated Dela- 
wares, and pierced the mountain fastnesses of the 
Cherokees with incessant forays. 1 On the north, they 
uprooted the ancient settlements of the "Wyandots ; on 
the west, they exterminated the Eries and the An- 
dastes, and spread havoc and dismay among the tribes 
of the Illinois ; and on the east, the Indians of JSTew 
England tied at the first peal of the Mohawk war- 
cry. ISTor was it the Indian race alone who quailed 
before their ferocious valor. All Canada shook with 
the desolating fury of their onset; the people fled to 
the forts for refuge; the blood-besmeared conquerors 
roamed like wolves among the burning settlements, 
and the youthful colony trembled on the brink of ruin. 

The Iroquois in some measure owed their triumphs 
to the position of their country ; for they dwelt with- 
in the present limits of the state of New York, whence 
several great rivers and the inland oceans of the north- 
ern lakes opened ready thoroughfares to their roving 
warriors through all the adjacent wilderness. But the 
true fountain of their success is to be sought in their 
own inherent energies, wrought to the most effective 
action under a political fabric well suited to the In- 
dian life; hi their mental and moral organization; in 
their insatiable ambition and restless ferocity. / 

stroyed one of their villages, killed beads of shell, an article of inesti- 

the men and women, and roasted mable value with the Indians. " Two 

the small children on forked sticks, old men commonly go about, every 

like apples, before the fire. When year or two, to receive this tribute ; 

he began to tell his story, Francois and I have often had opportunity to 

was engaged in patching an old ca- observe what anxiety the poor In- 

noe, in preparation for a moose hunt ; dians were under, while these two 

but, soon growing warm with his re- old men remained in that part of the 

cital, he gave over his work, and at country where I was. An old Mo- 

the conclusion exclaimed with great hawk sachem, in a poor blanket and 

wrath and earnestness, " Mohog all a dirty shirt, may be seen issuing his 

devil ! " orders with as arbitrary an authority 

1 The tribute exacted from the as a Roman dictator." — Golden, Hist. 

Delawares consisted of wampum, or Five Nations, 4. 



s 



THE IROQUOIS. 



[Chap. I. 



In their scheme of government, as in their social cus- 
toms and religions observances, the Iroquois displayed, 
in full symmetry and matured strength, the same charac- 
teristics which in other tribes are found distorted, with- 
ered, decayed to the root, or, perhaps, faintly visible in 
an imperfect germ. They consisted of five tribes or 
nations, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the : Onondagas, 
the Cayugas, and the Senecas, to whom a sixth, the 
Tuscaroras, was afterwards added. 1 To each of these 
tribes belonged an organization of its own. Each had 
several sachems, who, with the subordinate chiefs and 
principal men, regulated all its internal affairs ; but, 
when foreign powers were to be treated with, or mat- 
ters involving the whole confederacy required delibera- 
tion, all the sachems of the several tribes convened 
in general assembly at the great council-house, in the 
Valley of Onondaga. Here ambassadors were received, 
alliances were adjusted, and ail subjects of general in- 
terest discussed with exemplary harmony. 2 The order 



! The following are synonymous 
names, gathered from various wri- 
ters : — 

Mohawks, Anies, Agniers, Agni- 
errhonons, Sankhicans, Canungas, 
Mauguawogs, Ganeagaonoh. 

Oneidas, Oneotas, Onoyats, Ano- 
yints, Ormeiouts, Oneyyotecaronoh, 
Onoiochrhonons. 

Onondagas, Onnontagues, Onon- 
dagaonohs. 

Cayugas, Caiyoquos, Goiogoens, 
Gweugwehonoh. 

Senecas, Sinnikes, Chennessies, 
Genesees, Chenandoanes, Tsonnon- 
touans, Jenontowanos, Nundawaro- 
noh. 

2 " In the year 1745, August Gott- 
lieb Spangenburg, a bishop of the 
United Brethren, spent several weeks 
in Onondaga, and frequently attend- 
ed the great council. The council- 
house was built of bark. On each 



side six seats were placed, each con- 
taining six persons. No one was 
admitted besides the members of the 
council, except a few, who were par- 
ticularly honored. If one rose to 
speak, all the rest sat in profound 
silence, smoking their pipes. The 
speaker uttered his words in a sing- 
ing tone, always rising a few notes 
at the close of each sentence. What- 
ever was pleasing to the council was 
confirmed by all with the word Nee, or 
Yes. And, at the end of each speech, 
the whole company joined in applaud- 
ing the speaker by calling Hoho. 
At noon, two men entered bearing a 
large kettle filled with meat, upon a 
pole across their shoulders, which 
was first presented to the guests. A 
large wooden ladle, as broad and 
deep as a common bowl, hung with 
a hook to the side of the kettle, with 
which every one might at once help 



Chap. I.] 



TOTEMSHIP. 



0 



of debate was prescribed by tune-honored customs ; 
and, in the fiercest heat of controversy, the assembly 
maintained its iron self-control. 

But the main stay of Iroquois polity was the sys- 
tem of totemship. It was this w^hich gave the structure 
its elastic strength; and but for this, a mere confed- 
eracy of jealous and warlike tribes must soon have 
been rent asunder by shocks from without or discord 
from within. At some early period, the Iroquois must 
have formed an individual nation ; for the whole people, 
irrespective of their separation into tribes, consisted 
of eight totemic clans ; and the members of each clan, 
to what nation soever they belonged, were mutually 
bound to one another by those close ties of fraternity 
which mark this singular institution. Thus the five 
nations of the confederacy were laced together by an 
eight-fold band; and to this hour their slender rem- 
nants cling to one another with invincible tenacity. 

It was no small security to the liberties of the 
Iroquois — liberties which they valued beyond any 
other possession — that by the Indian custom of de- 
scent in the female line, which among them was more 
rigidly adhered to than elsewhere, the office of the 
sachem must pass, not to his son, but to his brother, 
his sister's son, or some yet remoter kinsman. His 
power was constantly deflected into the collateral 
branches of his family ; and thus one of the strongest 
temptations of ambition was cut off. 1 The Iroquois 

himself to as much as he could eat. stop, joke, and laugh heartily." — 

When the guests had eaten their fill, Loskiel, Hist. Morav. Miss. 138. 

they begged the counsellors to do 1 The descent of the sachemship in 

the same. The whole was conducted the female line was a custom univer- 

in a very decent and quiet manner, sally prevalent among the Five Na- 

Indeed, now and then, one or the other tions, or Iroquois proper. Since, 

would lie flat upon his back to rest among Indian tribes generally, the 

himself, and sometimes they would right of furnishing a sachem wag 

2 



10 



THE IROQUOIS. 



[Chap. I. 



had no laws; but they had ancient customs which 
took the place of laws. Each man, or rather, each 
clan, was the avenger of its own wrongs ; but the 
manner of the retaliation w^as fixed by established 
usage. The tribal sachems, and even the great coun- 
cil at Onondaga, had no power to compel the execution 
of their decrees; yet they were looked up to with a 
respect which the soldier's bayonet or the sheriff's 
staff would never have commanded ; and it is highly 
to the honor of the Indian character that they could 
exact so great an authority where there was nothing 
to enforce it but the weight of moral power. 1 

The origin of the Iroquois is lost in hopeless ob- 
scurity. That they came from the west; that they 
came from the north ; that they sprang from the soil 



vested in some particular totemic 
clan, it results of course that the 
descent of the sachemship must fol- 
low the descent of the totem ; that 
is, if the totemship descend in the fe- 
male line, the sachemship must do the 
same. This custom of descent in 
the female line prevailed not only 
among the Iroquois proper, but also 
among the Wyandots, and probably 
among the Andastes and the Eries, 
extinct members of the great Iroquois 
family. Thus, among any of these 
tribes, when a Wolf warrior married 
a Hawk squaw, their children were 
Hawks, and not Wolves. With the 
Creeks of the south, according to the 
observations of Hawkins, (Georgia 
Hist. Coll. III. 69,) the rule was the 
same ; but among the Algonquins, 
on the contrary, or at least among 
the northern branches of this family, 
the reverse took place, the totem- 
ships, and consequently the chieftain- 
ships, descending in the male line, 
after the analogy of civilized nations. 
For this information concerning the 
northern Algonquins I am indebted 
to the courtesy of Mr. Schoolcraft, 



whose opportunities of observation 
among these tribes have only been 
equalled by the ability and faithful- 
ness with which he has used them. 

1 An account of the political insti- 
tutions of the Iroquois will be found 
in Mr. Morgan's series of letters, pub- 
lished in the American Review for- 
1847. Valuable information may also 
be obtained from Schoolcraft's Notes- 
on the Iroquois. 

Mr. Morgan is of opinion that these 
institutions were the result of "a 
protracted effort of legislation." An 
examination of the customs prevail- 
ing among other Indian tribes makes 
it probable that the elements of the 
Iroquois polity existed among them 
from an indefinite antiquity ; and the 
legislation of which Mr. Morgan 
speaks could only involve the ar- 
rangement and adjustment of already 
existing materials. 

Since the above chapter was writ- 
ten, Mr. Morgan has published an 
elaborate and very able work on the 
institutions of the Iroquois. It forms 
an invaluable addition to this depart- 
ment of knowledge. 



Chap. I.] TRADITIONS OE THEIR CONEEDERACY. 



11 



of New York, are the testimonies of three conflicting 
traditions, all equally worthless as aids to historic 
inquiry. 1 It is at the era of their confederacy — the 
event to which the five tribes owed all their great- 
ness and power, and to which we need assign no 
remoter date than that of a century before the first 
arrival of the Dutch in New York — that faint rays 
of light begin to pierce the gloom, and the chaotic 
traditions of the earlier epoch mould themselves into 
forms more palpable and distinct. 

Taounyawatha, the God of the Waters — such is the 
belief of the Iroquois — descended to the earth to in- 
struct his favorite people in the arts of savage life; 
and when he saw how they were tormented by giants, 
monsters, and evil spirits, he urged the divided tribes, 
for the common defence, to band themselves together 
hi an everlasting league. "While the injunction was 
as yet unfulfilled, the sacred messenger was recalled 
to the Great Spirit; but, before his departure, he 
promised that another should appear, empowered to 
instruct the people in all that pertained to their con- 
federation. And accordingly, as a band of Mohawk 
warriors was threading the funereal labyrinth of an 
ancient pine forest, they heard, amid its blackest 
depths, a hoarse voice chanting in measured cadence; 
and, following the sound, they saw, seated among the 
trees, a monster of so hideous an aspect, that, one and 
all, they stood benumbed with terror. His features 
were wild and frightful. He was encompassed by 
hissing rattlesnakes, which, Medusa-like, hung writhing 
from his head ; and on the ground around him were 

1 Recorded by Heckewelder, Col- by the whites, is rendered probable 

den, and Schoolcraft. That the Iro- by several circumstances. See Mr, 

quois had long dwelt on the spot Squier's work on the Aboriginal 

where they were first discovered Monuments of New York. 



12 



THE IROQUOIS. 



[Chap. I 



strewn implements of incantation, and magic vessels 
formed of human skulls. Recovering from their amaze- 
ment, the warriors could perceive that in the mystic 
words of the chant, which he still ponred forth, were 
couched the laws and principles of the destined con- 
federacy. The tradition further declares that the mon- 
ster, being surrounded and captured, was presently 
transformed to human shape, that he became a chief 
of transcendent wisdom and prowess, and to the day of 
his death ruled the councils of the now united tribes, 
To this hour, the presiding sachem of the council at 
Onondaga inherits from him the honored name of 
Atotarho. 1 

The traditional epoch which preceded the auspicious 
event of the confederacy, though wrapped in clouds 
and darkness, and defying historic scrutiny, has yet a 
character and meaning of its own. The gloom is 
peopled thick with phantoms ; with monsters and prod- 
igies, shapes of wild enormity, yet offering, in the Teu- 
tonic strength of their conception, the evidence of 
a robustness of mind unparalleled among tribes of 
a different lineage. In these evil days, the scattered 
and divided Iroquois were beset with every form of 
peril and disaster. Giants, cased in armor of stone, 
descended on them from the mountains of the north. 
Huge beasts trampled down their forests like fields 
of grass. Human heads, with streaming hair and glar- 
ing eyeballs, shot through the air like meteors, shedding 
pestilence and death throughout the land. A great 
horned serpent rose from Lake Ontario ; and only the 
thunder-bolts of the skies could stay his ravages, and 

1 This preposterous legend was him by Mr. Schoolcraft, in his Notes, 
first briefly related in the pamphlet The curious work of Cusick will 
of Cusick, the Tuscarora, and after again be referred to. 



Chap. I.J 



THEIR MYTHS AND LEGENDS. 



drive liini back to his native deeps. The skeletons 
of men, victims of some monster of the forest, were 
seen swimming in the Lake of Teungktoo ; and around 
the Seneca village on the Hill of Genundewah, a two- 
headed serpent coiled himself, of size so monstrous 
that the wretched people were unable to ascend his 
scaly sides, and perished in multitudes by his pestilen- 
tial breath. Mortally wounded at length by the magic 
arrow of a child, he rolled down the steep, sweeping 
away the forest with his writhings, and plunging into 
the lake below, where he lashed the black waters till 
they boiled with blood and foam, and at length, ex- 
hausted with his agony, sunk, and perished at the 
bottom. Under the Falls of Niagara dwelt the Spirit 
of the Thunder, with his brood of giant sons ; and 
the Iroquois trembled in their villages when, amid the 
blackening shadows of the storm, they heard his deep 
shout roll along the firmament. 

The energy of fancy, whence these barbarous cre- 
ations drew their birth, displayed itself, at a later 
period, in that peculiar eloquence which the wild de- 
mocracy of the Iroquois tended to call forth, and to 
which the mountain and the forest, the torrent and 
the storm, lent their stores of noble imagery. That 
to this imaginative vigor was joined mental power 
of a different stamp, is witnessed by the caustic irony 
of Garangula and Sagoyewatha, and no less by the 
subtle policy, sagacious as it was treacherous, which 
marked the dealings of the Iroquois with surround- 
ing tribes. 1 

1 For traditions of the Iroquois see dian, who, being disabled by an acci- 
Schoolcraft, Notes, Chap. IX. Cu- dent from active occupations, essayed 
sick, History of the Five Nations, to become the historian of his people, 
and Clark, Hist. Onondaga, I. and produced a small pamphlet, writ- 

Cusick was an old Tuscarora In- ten in a language almost unintelli- 

B 



14 



THE IROQUOIS. 



[Chap. I. 



With all this intellectual superiority, the arts of 
life among them had not emerged from then: primi- 
tive rudeness; and their coarse pottery, their spear 
and arrow heads of stone, were in no way superior to 
those of many other tribes. Their agriculture deserves 
a higher praise. In 1696, the invading army of Count 
Frontenac found the maize fields extending a league 
and a half or two leagues from their villages ; and, 
hi 1779, the troops of General Sullivan were filled 
with amazement at their abundant stores of com, 
beans, and squashes, and at the ancient apple orchards 
which grew around their settlements. 

Their dwellings and works of defence were far 
from contemptible, either in their dimensions or in 
their structure ; and though by the several attacks of 
the French, and especially by the invasion of De >7on- 
ville, in 1687, and of Frontenac, nine years later, their 
fortified towns were levelled to the earth, never again 
to reappear ; yet, in the works of Champlain and other 
early writers we find abundant evidence of their pris- 
tine condition. Along the banks of the Mohawk, 
among the hills and hollows of Onondaga, in the for- 
ests of Oneida and Cayuga, on the romantic shores 
of Seneca Lake and the rich borders of the Genesee, 
surrounded by waving maize fields, and encircled from 
afar by the green margin of the forest, stood the 
ancient strongholds of the confederacy. The clus- 
tering dwellings were encompassed by palisades, in 



gible, and filled with a medley of 
traditions in which a few grains of 
truth are inextricably mingled with 
a tangled mass of absurdities. He 
relates the monstrous legends of his 
people with an air of implicit faith, 
and traces the presiding sachems of 
the confederacy in regular descent 



from the first Atotarho downwards. 
His work, which was printed at the 
Tuscarora village, near Lewiston, in 
1828, is illustrated by several rude 
engravings representing the Stone 
Giants, the Flying Heads, and other 
traditional monsters. 



Chap. I.] THEIR FORTS AND VILLAGES. 



15 



single, double, or triple rows, pierced with loopholes, 
furnished with platforms within, for the convenience 
of the defenders, with magazines of stones to hurl 
upon the heads of the enemy, and with water con- 
ductors to extinguish any fire which might be kindled 
from without. 1 

The area which these defences enclosed was often 
several acres in extent, and the dwellings, ranged in 
order within, were sometimes more than a hundred 
feet in length. Posts, firmly driven into the ground, 
with an intervening framework of poles, formed the 
basis of the structure; and its sides and arched roof 
were closely covered with layers of elm bark. Each 
of the larger dwellings contained several distinct fam- 
ilies, whose separate fires were built along the central 
space, while compartments on each side, like the stalls 
of a stable, afforded some degree of privacy. Here, 
rude couches were prepared, and bear and deer skins 
spread; while above, the ripened ears of maize, sus- 
pended in rows, formed a golden tapestry. 2 



1 Lafitau, Mceurs^des Sauvages with a grave, chearful complaisance, 
Ameriquains, II. 4-10. according to their custom ; they 

Frontenac, in his expedition against shew'd us where to lay our baggage, 
the Onondagas, in 1696, (see Of- and repose ourselves during our stay 
ficial Journal, Doc. Hist. New York, with them ; which was in the two end 
I. 332,) found one of their villages apartments of this large house. The 
built in an oblong form, with four Indians that came with us were 
bastions. The wall was formed of placed over against us. This cabin 
three rows of palisades, those of the is about eighty feet long and seven- 
outer row being forty or fifty feet teen broad, the common passage six 
high. The usual figure of the Iro- feet wide, and the apartments on 
quois villages was circular or oval, each side five feet, raised a foot above 
and in this instance the bastions were the passage by a long sapling, hewed 
no doubt the suggestion of some Eu- square, and fitted with joists that go 
ropean adviser. from it to the back of the house ; on 

2 Bartram gives the following ac- these joists they lay large pieces of 
count of the great council-house at bark, and on extraordinary occasions 
Onondaga, which he visited in- 1743. spread mats made of rushes : this fa- 

" We alighted at the council-house, vor we had ; on these floors they set 

where the chiefs were already assem- or lye down, every one as he will ; 

bled to receive us, which they did the apartments are divided from each 



16 



THE IROQUOIS. 



[Chap. I. 



In the long evenings of midwinter, when in the 
wilderness without the trees cracked with biting cold, 
and the forest paths were clogged with snow, then, 
around the lodge-fires of the Iroquois, warriors, squaws, 
and restless naked children were clustered in social 
groups, each dark face brightening in the fickle fire- 
light, while, with jest and laugh, the pipe passed round 
from hand to hand. Perhaps some shrivelled old war- 
rior, the story-teller of the tribe, recounted to atten- 
tive ears the deeds of ancient heroism, legends of spirits 
and monsters, or tales of witches and vampires — super- 
stitions not less rife among this all-believing race, than 
among the nations of the transatlantic world. 

The life of the Iroquois, though void of those mul- 
tiplying phases which vary the routine of civilized 
existence, was one of sharp excitement and sudden 
contrast. The chase, the war-path, the dance, the 
festival, the game of hazard, the race of political am- 
bition, all had their votaries. When the assembled 
sachems had resolved on war against some foreign 
tribe, and when, from their great council-house of bark, 
in the Valley of Onondaga, their messengers had gone 
forth to invite the warriors to arms, then from east 
to w T est, through the farthest bounds of the confed- 
eracy, a thousand warlike hearts caught up the sum- 



other by boards or bark, six or seven 
foot long", from the lower floor to the 
upper, on which they put their lum- 
ber, when they have eaten their hom- 
cny, as they set in each apartment 
before the fire ; they can put the bowl 
over head, having not above five foot 
to reach ; they set on the floor some- 
times at each end, but mostly at one ; 
they have a shed to put their wood 
into in the winter, or in the summer, 
to set to converse or play, that has a 
door to the south; all the sides and 



roof of the cabin are made of bark, 
bound fast to poles set in the ground, 
and bent round on the top, or set 
aflatt, for the roof, as we set our rafters ; 
over each fireplace they leave a hole 
to let out the smoke, which, in rainy 
weather, they cover with a piece of 
bark, and this they can easily reach 
with a pole to push it on one side or 
quite over the hole ; after this model 
are most of their cabins built." — 
Bartram, Obsewations, 40. 



Chap. I] 



THE WAR-PATH. 



n 



mons with glad alacrity. With, fasting and praying, 
and consulting dreams and omens ; with invoking the 
war-god, and dancing the frantic war-dance, the war- 
riors sought to insure the triumph of their arms ; 
and, these strange rites concluded, they began their 
stealthy progress, full of confidence, through the de- 
vious pathways of the forest. For days and weeks, hi 
anxious expectation, the villagers await the result. 
And now, as evening closes, a shrill, wild cry, pealing 
from afar, over the darkening forest, proclaims the re- 
turn of the victorious warriors. The village is alive 
with sudden commotion; and snatching sticks and 
stones, knives and hatchets, men, women, and chil- 
dren, yelling like fiends let loose, swarm out of the 
narrow portal, to visit upon the miserable captives a 
foretaste of the deadlier torments in store for them. 
And now, the black arches of the forest glow with 
the fires of death ; and with brandished torch and 
firebrand the frenzied multitude close around their 
victim. The pen shrinks to write, the heart sickens 
to conceive, the fierceness of his agony ; yet still, amid 
the din of his tormentors, rises his clear voice of scorn 
and defiance. The work is done ; the blackened trunk 
is flung to the dogs, and, with clamorous shouts and 
hootings, the murderers seek to drive away the spirit 
of their victim. 1 

The Iroquois reckoned these barbarities among their 

1 " Being at this place the 17 of of them was burnt two women, and 

June, there came fifty prisoners from a man and a child killed with a stone, 

the south-westward. They were of Att night we heard a great noyse as 

two nations, some whereof have few if y e houses had all fallen, butt itt 

guns ; the other none at all. One was only y e inhabitants driving away 

nation is about ten days' journey from y e ghosts of y e murthered. 
any Christians, and trade onely with " The 18 th going to Canagorah, 

one greatt house, nott farr from the that day there were most cruelly 

sea, and the other trade only, as they burnt four men, four women, and one 

say, with a black people. This day boy. The cruelty lasted aboutt seven 

3 : B * 



18 



THE IROQUOIS. 



[Chat. I. 



most exquisite enjoyments ; and yet they had other 
sources of pleasure, which made up in frequency and 
in innocence all that they lacked in intensity. Each 
passing season had its feasts and dances, often mingling 
religion with social pastime. The young had their 
frolics and merry-makings; and the old had their no 
less frequent councils, where conversation and laugh- 
ter alternated with grave deliberations for the pub- 
lic weal. There were also stated periods marked by 
the recurrence of momentous ceremonies, in which the 
whole community took part — the mystic sacrifice 
of the dogs, the wild orgies of the dream feast, and 
the loathsome festival of the exhumation of the dead. 
Yet, in the intervals of war and hunting, these mul- 
tiform occupations would often fail; and, while the 
women were toiling in the cornfields, the lazy warriors 
vainly sought relief from the scanty resources of their 
own minds, and beguiled the hours with smoking or 
sleeping, with gambling or gallantry. 1 

If we seek for a single trait preeminently charac- 
teristic of the Iroquois, we shall find it hi that bound- 
less pride which impelled them to style themselves, 
not inaptly as regards their own race, " the men sur- 
passing all others." 2 " Must I," exclaimed one of their 
great warriors, as he fell wounded among a crowd of 
Algon quins, — " must I, who have made the whole earth 
tremble, now die by the hands of children % " Their 
power kept pace with their pride. Their war-parties 

hours. When they were almost dead Charlevoix, Letters to the Duchess 

letting them loose to the mercy of of Lesdiguieres ; Champlain, Voyages 

y e boys, and taking the hearts of such de la Nouv. France ; Clark, Hist, 

as were dead to feast on." — Green- Onondaga, I., and several volumes 

halgh, Journal, 1677. of the Jesuit Relations, especially 

1 For an account of the habits and those of 1656-7 and 1659-60. 

customs of the Iroquois, the follow- 2 This is Colden's translation of 

ing works, besides those already the word Ongwehonwe, one of the 

cited, may be referred to: — names of the Iroquois. 



Chap. I] 



THE HURONS OR WYANDOTS. 



19 



roamed over half America, and their name was a terror 
from the Atlantic to the Mississippi; but, when we 
ask the numerical strength of the dreaded confederacy, 
when we discover that, in the days of their greatest 
triumphs, their united cantons could not have mus- 
tered four thousand warriors, we stand amazed at the 
folly and dissension which left so vast a region the 
prey of a handful of bold marauders. Of the cities 
and villages now so thickly scattered over the lost 
domain of the Iroquois, a single one might boast a 
more numerous population than all the five united 
tribes. 1 

From this remarkable people, who with all the fe- 
rocity of their race blended heroic virtues and marked 
endowments of intellect, I pass to other members of 
the same great family, whose different fortunes may 
perhaps be ascribed rather to the force of circum- 
stance, than to any intrinsic inferiority. 

The peninsula between the Lakes Huron, Erie, and 
Ontario was occupied by two distinct peoples, speak- 
ing dialects of the Iroquois tongue. The Hurons or 
Wyandots, including the formidable bands called by the 
French the Dionondadies, or Tobacco Nation, 2 dwelt 



1 La Hontan estimated the Iro- 
quois at from five thousand to seven 
thousand fighting men ; but his means 
of information were very imperfect, 
and the same may be said of several 
other French writers, who have over- 
rated the force of the confederacy. In 
1677, the English sent one Greenhalgh 
to ascertain their numbers. He visited 
all their towns and villages, and re- 
ported their aggregate force at two 
thousand one hundred and fifty fight- 
ing men. The report of Colonel 
Coursey, agent from Virginia, at 
about the same period, closely cor- 
responds with this statement. Green- 
halgh's Journal will be found in 



Chalmers' Political Annals, and in 
the Documentary History of New 
York. Subsequent estimates, up to 
the period of the revolution, when 
their strength had much declined, 
vary from twelve hundred to two 
thousand one hundred and twenty. 
-Most of these estimates are given by 
Clinton, in his Discourse on the Five 
Nations, and several by Jefferson, in 
his Notes on Virginia. 

2 Hurons, Wyandots, Yendots, 
Ouendaets, Quatogies. 

The Dionondadies are also de- 
signated by the following names : 
Tionontatez, Petuneux — Nation of 
Tobacco. 



20 



THE HURONS OR WYANDOTS. 



[Chap. L 



among the forests which bordered the eastern shores 
of the fresh water sea, to which they have left their 
name ; while the neutral nation, so called from their 
neutrality in the war between the Hurons and the 
Five Nations, inhabited the northern shores of Lake 
Erie, and even extended their eastern flank across the 
strait of Niagara. 

The population of the Hurons has been variously 
stated at from ten thousand to thirty thousand souls, 
but probably did not exceed the former estimate. The 
Franciscans and the Jesuits were early among them, 
and from their copious descriptions it is apparent 
that in legends and superstitions, manners and hab- 
its, religious observances and social customs, this peo- 
ple were closely assimilated to their brethren of the 
Five Nations. Their capacious dwellings of bark, 
and their palisaded foils, seemed copied after the same 
model. 1 Like the Five Nations, they were divided into 
tribes, and cross-divided into totemic clans ; and, as 
with them, the ofhce of sachem descended in the fe- 
male line. The same crude materials of a political 
fabric were to be found hi both ; but, unlike the Iro- 
quois, the Wyandots had not as yet wrought them 
into a system, and woven them into an harmonious 
whole. 

Like the Five Nations, the Wyandots were hi some 
measure an agricultural people ; they bartered the sur- 
plus products of their maize fields to surrounding tribes, 
usually receiving fish in exchange ; and this traffic was 
so considerable, that the Jesuits styled then* country 
the Granary of the Algonquins. 2 

1 See Sagard, Hurons, 115. into a slight mistake when he says 

2 Bancroft, in his chapter on the that no trade was carried on by any 
Indians east of the Mississippi, falls of the tribes. For an account of the 



Chap. I.] 



THE NEUTRAL NATION. 



21 



Their prosperity was rudely broken by the rancorous 
hostilities of the Five Nations; for though the con- 
flicting parties were not ill matched in point of num- 
bers, yet the united counsels and ferocious energies 
of the confederacy swept all before them. In the 
year 1649, in the depth of winter, their warriors in- 
vaded the country of the Wyandots, stormed their 
largest villages, and involved all within in indiscrimi- 
nate slaughter. 1 The survivors fled in panic terror, 
and the whole nation was dispersed and broken. 

Some found refuge among the French of Canada, 
where, at the village of Lorette, near Quebec, their 
descendants still remain ; others were incorporated 
with their conquerors ; while others again fled north- 
ward, beyond Lake Superior, and sought an asylum 
among the desolate wastes which bordered on the 
north-eastern bands of the Dahcotah. Driven back by 
those fierce bison hunters, they next established them- 
selves about the outlet of Lake Superior, and the 
shores and islands in the northern parts of Lake Hu- 
ron. Thence, about the year 1680, they descended to 
Detroit, where they formed a permanent settlement, and 
where, by their superior valor, capacity, and address, 
they soon acquired a marvellous ascendency over the 
surrounding Algonquins. 

The ruin of the Neutral Nation followed close on 
that of the Wyandots, to whom, according to Jesuit 
authority, they bore an exact resemblance in charac- 
ter and manners. 2 The Senecas soon found means to 
pick a quarrel with them; they were assailed by ail 

traffic between the Hurons and Al- 2 According to Lallemant, the pop- 

gonquins, see Mercier, Relation des illation of the Neutral Nation amount- 

Hurons, 1637, p. 17] . ed to at least twelve thousand ; but the 

1 Charlevoix, Nouvelle France, I. estimate is probably exaggerated. — 

290-295. Relation des Hurons, 1641, p. 50. 



22 



THE ANDASTES AND ERIES. 



[Chap. I. 



the strength of the insatiable confederacy, and within a 
few years their destruction as a nation was complete. 

South of Lake Erie dwelt two potent members of 
the Iroquois family. The Andastes built their vil- 
lages along the valleys of the Alleghany and the Up- 
per Ohio; while the Erigas, or Eries, occupied the 
borders of the lake which still retains their name. 
Of these two nations little is known, for the Jesuits 
had no missions among them, and few traces of them 
survive beyond their names and the record of their 
destruction. The war with the Wyandots was scarcely 
over, when the Five Nations turned their fratricidal 
arms against their Erie brethren. 

In the year 1655, using their canoes as scaling- 
ladders, they stormed the Erie strongholds, leaped 
down like tigers among the defenders, and butchered 
them without mercy. 1 The greater part of the nation 
was involved in the massacre, and the remnant was 
incorporated with the conquerors, or with other tribes, 
to which they fled for refuge. The ruin of the An- 
dastes came next in turn ; but this brave people fought 
for twenty years against their inexorable assailants, 
and their destruction was not consummated until the 
year 1672, when they shared the fate of the rest. 2 

Thus, within less than a quarter of a century, four 
nations, the most brave and powerful of the North 
American savages, sank before the arms of the con- 
federates. Nor did their triumphs end here. Within 

1 An account of the destruction of on this subject, as related to the wri- 
the Eries, drawn from the Jesuit wri- ter by a chief of the Cayugas, do not 
ters, may be found in an interesting agree with the narratives of the Jes- 
lecture, delivered by O. H. Marshall, uits. 

Esq., and published in the Western 2 Charlevoix, Nouvelle France, I. 

Literary Messenger for May and 443. 
June, 1849. The Iroquois traditions 



Chap. I.] 



ADOPTION OF PRISONERS. 



23 



the same short space they subdued their southern 
neighbors the Lenape, 1 the leading members of the 
Algonquin family, and expelled the Ottawas, a nu- 
merous people of the same lineage, from the borders 
of the river which bears their name. In the north, 
the west, and the south, their conquests embraced every 
adjacent tribe ; and meanwhile their war parties were 
harassing the French of Canada with reiterated in- 
roads, and yelling the war-whoop under the very walls 
of Quebec. 

They were the worst of conquerors. Inordinate 
pride, the lust of blood and dominion, were the main- 
springs of their warfare ; and their victories were 
stained with every excess of savage passion. That 
their triumphs must have cost them dear ; that, in 
spite of their cautious tactics, these multiplied con- 
flicts must have greatly abridged their strength, would 
appear inevitable. Their losses were, in fact, consid- 
erable ; but every breach was repaired by means of a 
practice which they, in common with other tribes, con- 
stantly adhered to. When their vengeance was glut- 
ted by the sacrifice of a sufficient number of captives, 
they spared the lives of the remainder, and adopted 
them as members of their confederated tribes, sepa- 
rating wives from husbands, and children from parents, 
and distributing them among different villages, in or- 
der that old ties and associations might be more 
completely broken up. This policy, as Schoolcraft 
informs us, was designated among them by a name 
which signifies "flesh cut into pieces and scattered 
among the tribes." 

In the years 1 714-' 15, the confederacy received a 

1 Gallatin places the final subjection of the Lenape at about the year 
1750. — Synopsis, 48. 



24 



IROQUOIS TRIBES— THEIR CHARACTER. [Chap. I 



great accession of strength. Southwards, about the 
head waters of the Rivers Neuse and Tar, and separated 
from their kindred tribes by intervening Algonquin 
communities, dwelt the Tuscaroras, a warlike people 
belonging to the generic stock of the Iroquois. The 
wrongs inflicted by white settlers, and their own un- 
distinguishmg vengeance, involved them in a war with 
the colonists, which resulted in their defeat and ex- 
pulsion. They emigrated to the Five Nations, whose 
allies they had been in former wars with southern 
tribes, and who now gladly received them, admitting 
them, as a sixth nation, into their confederacy, and 
assigning to their sachems a seat in the council-house 
at Onondaga. 

It is a remark of Gallatin, that, in their career of 
conquest, the Five Nations encountered more stubborn 
resistance from the tribes of their own family, than 
from those of a different lineage. In truth, all the 
scions of this warlike stock seem endued with singu- 
lar vitality and force, and among them we must seek 
for the best type of the Indian character. Few tribes 
could match them in prowess and constancy, in moral 
energy and intellectual vigor. The Jesuits remarked 
that they were more intelligent, yet less tractable, than 
other savages ; and Charlevoix observes that, though 
the Algonquins were readily converted, they made but 
fickle proselytes ; while the Hurons, though not easily 
won over to the church, were far more faithful in 
their adherence. 1 Of this tribe, the Hurons or Wy- 
andots, a candid and experienced observer declares, 
that of all the Indians with whom he was conversant, 
they alone held it disgraceful to turn from the face 



i Nouvelle France, I. 196. 



Chap. L] 



THE ALGOXQUINS. 



25 



of an enemy when the fortunes of the fight were 
adverse. 1 

Besides these inherent qualities, the tribes of the 
Iroquois race derived great advantages from their su- 
perior social organization. They were all, more or 
less, tillers of the soil, and were thus enabled to con- 
centrate a more numerous population than the scat- 
tered tribes who live by the chase alone. In their 
well-peopled and well-constructed villages, they dwelt 
together the greater part of the year ; and thence the 
religious rites and social and political usages, which 
elsewhere existed only in the germ, attained among 
them a full and perfect development. Yet these ad- 
vantages were not without alloy, and the Jesuits were 
not slow to remark that the stationary and thriving 
Iroquois were more loose in their observance of social 
ties, than the wandering and starving savages of the 
north. 2 

THE ALGONQUIN FAMILY. 

Except the detached nation of the Tuscaroras, and 
a few smaller tribes adhering to them, the Iroquois 
family were confined to the region south of the Lakes 
Erie and Ontario, and the peninsula east of Lake 
Huron. They formed, as it were, an island hi the 
vast expanse of Algonquin population, extending from 
Hudson's Bay on the north to the Carolinas on the 
south; from the Atlantic on the east to the Missis- 
sippi and Lake Winnipeg on the west. They were 



1 William Henry Harrison, Dis- 
course on the Aborigines of the Ohio. 
See Ohio Hist. Trans. Part Second, 
I. 257. 

2 " Here y e Indyans were very de- 
sirous to see us ride our horses, w ch 

4 



wee did : they made great feasts and 
dancing, and invited us y' when all 
y e maides were together, both wee 
and our Indyans might choose such 
as lyked us to ly with." — Green- 
halgh, Journal. 

C 



26 



THE AIjGONQUINS. 



[Chap, I. 



Algonquins who greeted Jacques Cartier, as his ships 
ascended the St. Lawrence. The first British colonists 
found savages of the same race hunting and fishing 
along the coasts and inlets of Virginia; and it was 
the daughter of an Algonquin chief who interceded 
with her father for the life of the adventurous Eng- 
lishman. They were Algonquins who, under Sassacus 
the Pequot, and Philip of Mount Hope, waged deadly 
war against the Puritans of New England; who dwelt 
at Penacook under the rule of the great magician, 
Passaconaway, and trembled before the evil spirits of 
the Crystal Hills; and who sang aves and told their 
beads in the forest chapel of Father Rasles, by the 
banks of the Kennebec. They were Algonquins who, 
under the great tree at Kensington, made the cove- 
nant of peace with William Penn ; and when French 
Jesuits and fur-traders explored the Wabash and the 
Ohio, they found their valleys tenanted by the same 
far-extended race. At the present day, the traveller, 
perchance, may find them pitching their bark lodges 
along the beach at Mackinaw, spearing fish among 
the boiling rapids of St. Mary's, or skimming the 
waves of Lake Superior in their birch canoes. 

Of all the members of the Algonquin family, those 
called by the English the Delawares, by the French 
the Loups, and by themselves Lenni Lenape, or Origi- 
nal Men, hold the first claim to attention; for their 
traditions declare them to be the parent stem whence 
other Algonquin tribes have sprung. The latter rec- 
ognized the claim, and at all solemn councils, accorded 
to the ancestral tribe the title of Grandfather. 1 

1 The Lenape, on their part, call Brothers ; but they confess the supe- 
the other Algonquin tribes Children, riority of the Wyandots and the Five 
Grandchildren, Nephews, or Younger Nations, by yielding them the title of 



Chap. I.] 



THE LENNI LENAPE. 



27 



The first European colonists found the conical 
lodges of the Lenape clustered in frequent groups 
about the waters of the Delaware and its tributary 
streams, within the present limits of New Jersey and 
Eastern Pennsylvania. The nation was separated into 
three divisions, and three sachems formed a trium- 
virate, who, with the council of old men, regulated 
all its affairs. 1 They were, in some small measure, an 
agricultural people ; but fishing and the chase were 
their chief dependence, and through a great part of 
the year they were scattered abroad, among forests and 
streams, in search of sustenance. . 

When William Penn held his far-famed council with 
the sachems of the Lenape, he extended the hand of 
brotherhood to a people as unwaiiike in their habits 
as his own pacific followers. This is by no means 
to be ascribed to any inborn love of peace. The 
Lenape were then in a state of degrading vassalage, 
victims to the domineering power of the Five Nations, 
who, that they might drain to the dregs the cup of 
humiliation, had forced them to assume the name of 
Women, and forego the use of arms. 2 Dwelling un- 
der the shadow of the tyrannical confederacy, they 
were long unable to wipe out the blot ; but at length, 
pushed from their ancient seats by the encroachments 
of white men, and removed westward, partially be- 
yond the reach of their conquerors, their native spirit 

Uncles. They, in return, call the into subjection, is wholly unworthy of 

Lenape Nephews, or more frequently credit. It is not to be believed that 

Cousins. a people so acute and suspicious 

1 Loskiel, Part I. 130. could be the dupes of so palpable a 

2 The story told by the Lenape trick; and it is equally incredible 
themselves, and recorded with the that a high-spirited tribe could be in- 
utmost good faith by Loskiel and duced, by the most persuasive rhet- 
Heckewelder, that the Five Nations oric, to assume the name of Women, 
had not conquered them, but, by a which in Indian eyes is the last con- 
cunning artifice, had cheated them fession of abject abasement. 



28 



THE ALGONQUINS. 



[Chap. I. 



began to revive, and they assumed a tone of unwonted 
defiance. During the Old French War they resumed 
the use of arms, and while the Five Nations fought 
for the English, they espoused the cause of France. 
At the opening of the revolution, they boldly asserted 
their freedom from the yoke of their conquerors ; and 
a few years after, the Five Nations confessed, at a 
public council, that the Lenape were no longer women, 
but men. 1 Ever since that period, they have stood in 
high repute for bravery, generosity, and all the savage 
virtues; and the settlers of the frontier have often 
found, to their cost, that the women of the Iroquois 
have been transformed into a race of formidable war- 
riors. At the present day, the small remnant set- 
tled beyond the Mississippi are among the bravest 
marauders of the west. Their war-parties pierce the 
farthest wilds of the Rocky Mountains ; and the prairie 
traveller may sometimes meet the Delaware warrior 
returning from a successful foray, a gaudy handker- 
chief bound about his brows, his snake locks fluttering 
in the wind, his rifle resting across his saddle-bow, 
while the tarnished and begrimed equipments of his 
half-wild horse bear witness that the unscrupulous 
rider has waylaid and plundered some Mexican cavalier. 

Adjacent to the Lenape, and associated with them 
in some of the most momentous passages of their his- 
tory, dwelt the Shawanoes, the Chaouanons of the 
French, a tribe of bold, roving, and adventurous spirit. 
Their eccentric wanderings, their sudden appearances 
and disappearances, perplex the antiquary, and defy 
research; but from various scattered notices, we may 
gather that at an early period, they occupied the 



1 Hecke welder, Hist. Ind. Nat. 53. 



Chap. I.J 



THE MIAMI S — THE ILLINOIS. 



29 



valley of the Ohio ; that, becoming embroiled with the 
Five Nations, they shared the defeat of the Andastes, 
and about the year 1672 fled to escape destruction. 
Some found an asylum in the country of the Lenape, 
where they lived tenants at will of the Five Nations ; 
others sought refuge hi the Carolinas and Florida, 
where, true to their native instincts, they soon came 
to blows with the owners of the soil. Again, turning 
northwards, they formed new settlements in the valley 
of the Ohio, where they were now suffered to dwell 
in peace, and where, at a later period, they were 
joined by such of their brethren as had found refuge 
among the Lenape. 1 

Of the tribes which, single and detached, or co- 
hering in loose confederacies, dwelt within the limits 
of Lower Canada, Acadia, and New England, it is 
needless to speak ; for they offered no distinctive traits 
demanding notice. Passing the country of the Lenape 
and the Shawanoes, and descending the Ohio, the 
traveller would have found its valley chiefly occupied 
by two nations, the Miamis or Twightwees, on the 
Wabash and its branches, and the Illinois, who dwelt 
in the neighborhood of the river to which they have 
given their name. Though never subjugated, as were 
the Lenape, both the Miamis and the Illinois were 
reduced to the last extremity by the repeated attacks 
of the Five Nations; and the Illinois, in particular, 
suffered so much by these and other wars, that the 
population of ten or twelve thousand, ascribed to 
them by the early Freiiqh writers, had dwindled, dur- 
ing the first quarter of the eighteenth century, to a 

1 The evidence concerning the 65. See also Drake, Life of Tec urn- 
movements of the Shawanoes is well seh, 10. 
summed up by Gallatin, Synopsis, 

C * 



30 



THE ALGOXQTJIXS. 



[Chap. I 



few small villages. 1 According to Marest, they were 
a people sunk in sloth and licentiousness; but that 
priestly father had suffered much at their hands, and 
viewed them with a jaundiced eye. Their agriculture 
was not contemptible; they had permanent dwellings 
as well as portable lodges; and though wandering 
through many months of the year among their broad 
prairies and forests, there were seasons when their 
whole population was gathered, with feastings and 
merry-makings, within the limits of their villages. 

Turning his course northward, traversing the Lakes 
Michigan and Superior, and skirting the western mar- 
gin of Lake Huron, the voyager would have found 
the solitudes of the wild waste around him broken 
by scattered lodges of the Ojibwas, Pottawatt amies, 
and Ottawas. About the bays and rivers west of 
Lake Michigan, he would have seen the Sacs, the 
Foxes, and the Menomonies; and penetrating the 
frozen wilderness of the north, he would have been 
welcomed by the rude hospitality of the wandering 
Knisteneaux. 

The Ojibwas, with their kindred, the Pottawatt a- 
mies, and their friends the Ottawas, — the latter of 
whom were fugitives from the eastward, whence they 
had fled from the wrath of the Iroquois, — were banded 
into a sort of confederacy. 2 In blood and language, 
in manners and character, they were closely allied. 
The Ojibwas, by far the most numerous of the three, 
occupied the basin of Lake Superior, and extensive 
adjacent regions. In then: boundaries the career of 
Iroquois conquest found at length a check. The fu- 

1 Father Rasles, 1723, says, that 2 Morse, Report, Appendix, 141. 
there were eleven. Marest, in 1712, 
found only three. 



Chap. I.] 



THE OJIBWAS. 



31 



gitive Wyandots sought refuge in the Ojibwa hunting- 
groimds ; and tradition relates, that at the outlet of 
Lake Superior, an Iroquois war-party once encountered 
a disastrous repulse. 

In their mode of life, they were far more rude than 
the Iroquois, or even the southern Algonquin tribes. 
The totemic system is found among them in its most 
imperfect state. The original clans have become 
broken into fragments, and indefinitely multiplied ; 
and many of the ancient customs of the institution 
are but loosely regarded. Agriculture is little known, 
and, through summer and winter, they range the wil- 
derness with restless wandering, now gorged to reple- 
tion, and now perishing with want. In the calm 
days of summer, the Ojibwa fisherman pushes out his 
birch canoe upon the great inland ocean of the north ; 
and, as he gazes down into the pellucid depths, he 
seems like one balanced between earth and sky. 
The watchful fish-hawk circles above his head; and 
below, farther than his line will reach,, he sees the 
trout glide shadowy and silent over the glimmering 
pebbles. The little islands on the verge of the hori- 
zon seem now starting into spires, now melting from 
the sight, now shaping themselves into a thousand 
fantastic forms, with the strange mirage of the waters ; 
and he fancies that the evil spirits of the lake lie 
basking their serpent forms on those unhallowed 
shores. Again, he explores the watery labyrinths 
where the stream sweeps among pine-tufted islands, or 
runs, black and deep, beneath the shadows of moss- 
bearded firs ; or he lifts his canoe upon the sandy 
beach, and, while his camp-fire crackles on the grass 
plat, reclines beneath the trees, and smokes and laughs 
away the sultry hours, in a lazy luxury of enjoyment. 



32 



THE ALG ON QUINS. 



[Chap. I. 



But when winter descends upon the north, sealing 
up the fountains, fettering the streams, and turning 
the green-robed forests to shivering nakedness, then, 
bearing their frail dwellings on their backs, the Ojibwa 
family winder forth into the wilderness, cheered only, 
on their dreary track, by the whistling of the north 
wind, and the hungry howl of wolves. By the banks 
of some frozen stream, women and children, men and 
dogs, lie crouched together around the fire. They 
spread their benumbed fingers over the embers, while 
the wind shrieks through the fir-trees like the gale 
through the rigging of a frigate, and the narrow con- 
cave of the wigwam sparkles with the frost-work of 
their congealed breath. In vain they beat the magic 
drum, and call upon their guardian manitoes; — the 
wary moose keeps aloof, the bear lies close in his 
hollow tree, and famine stares them in the face. And 
now the hunter can fight no more against the nipping 
cold and blinding sleet. StifF and stark, with haggard 
cheek and shrivelled lip, he lies among the snow drifts ; 
till, with tooth and claw, the famished wildcat strives 
in vain to pierce the frigid marble of his limbs. Such 
harsh schooling is thrown away on the incorrigible 
mind of the northern Algonquin. He lives in misery, 
as his fathers lived before him. Still, in the brief 
hour of plenty he forgets the season of want ; and 
still the sleet and the snow descend upon his house- 
less head. 1 

I have thus passed in brief review the more prom- 
inent of the Algonquin tribes; those whose struggles 

1 See Tanner, Long, and Henry. Lower Canada, two hundred years 

A comparison of Tanner with the ago, was essentially the same with 

accounts of the Jesuit Le Jeune Algonquin life on the Upper Lakes 

will show that Algonquin life in within the last half century. 



Chap. I] 



THEIR LEGENDARY LORE. 



33 



and sufferings form the theme of the ensuing History. 
In speaking of the Iroquois, some of the distinctive 
peculiarities of the Algonquins have already been 
hinted at. It must be admitted that, in moral sta- 
bility and intellectual vigor, they are inferior to the 
former; though some of the most conspicuous off- 
spring of the wilderness, Metacom, Tecumseh, and 
Pontiac himself, boasted their blood and language. 

The fireside stories of every primitive people are 
faithful reflections of the form and coloring of the 
national mind; and it is no proof of sound philoso- 
phy to turn with contempt from the study of a fairy 
tale. The legendary lore of the Iroquois, black as 
the midnight forests, awful in its gloomy strength, 
is but another manifestation of that spirit of mastery 
which uprooted whole tribes from the earth, and 
deluged the wilderness with blood. The traditionary 
tales of the Algonquins wear a different aspect. The 
credulous circle around an Ojibwa lodge-fire listened 
to wild recitals of necromancy and witchcraft — men 
transformed to beasts, and beasts transformed to men, 
animated trees, and birds who spoke with human 
tongue. They heard of malignant sorcerers dwelling 
among the lonely islands of spell-bound lakes; of 
grisly weendigoes, and bloodless geebi ; of evil manitoes 
lurking in the dens and fastnesses of the woods ; of 
pygmy champions, diminutive in stature, but mighty in 
soul, who, by the potency of charm and talisman, sub- 
dued the direst monsters of the waste ; and of heroes, 
who, not by downright force and open onset, but by 
subtle strategy, by trick or magic art, achieved mar- 
vellous triumphs over the brute force of their assail- 
ants. Sometimes the tale will breathe a different 
spirit, and tell of orphan children abandoned in the 
5 



34 RELIGIOUS BELIEF OF THE INDIANS. [Chap. I. 

lieart of a hideous wilderness, beset with fiends and 
cannibals. Some enamoured maiden, scornful of earthly 
suitors, plights her troth to the graceful manito of 
the grove; or bright aerial beings, dwellers of the 
sky, descend to tantalize the gaze of mortals with 
evanescent forms of loveliness. 

The mighty giant, the God of the Thunder, who 
made his home among the caverns, beneath the cata- 
ract of Niagara, was a conception which the deep 
imagination of the Iroquois might fitly engender. The 
Algonquins held a simpler faith, and maintained that 
the thunder was a bird who built his nest on the pin- 
nacle of towering mountains. Two daring boys once 
scaled the height, and thrust sticks into the eyes of 
the portentous nestlings ; which hereupon flashed forth 
such wrathful scintillations, that the sticks were shiv- 
ered to atoms. 1 

The religious belief of the Algonquins — and the 
remark holds good, not of the Algonquins only, but 
of all the hunting tribes of America — is a cloudy 
bewilderment, where we seek in vain for system or 
coherency. Among a primitive and savage people, 
there were no poets to vivify its images, no priests to 



1 For Algonquin legends, see 
Schoolcraft, in Algic Researches 
and Oneota. Le Jeune early dis- 
covered these legends among the 
tribes of his mission. Two centuries 
ago, among the Algonquins of Lower 
Canada, a tale was related to him, 
which, in its principal incidents, is 
identical with the story of the " Boy 
who set a Snare for the Sun," recent- 
ly found by Mr. Schoolcraft among 
the tribes of the Upper Lakes. Com- 
pare Relation, 1637, p. 172, and One- 
ota, p. 75. The coincidence affords 
a curious proof of the antiquity and 
wide diffusion of some of these tales. 



The Dahcotah, as well as the Al- 
gonquins, believe that the thunder 
is produced by a bird. A beauti- 
ful illustration of this idea will be 
found in Mrs. Eastman's Legends of 
the Sioux. An Indian propounded 
to Le Jeune a doctrine of his own. 
According to his theory, the thunder 
is produced by the eructations of a 
monstrous giant, who had unfortu- 
nately swallowed a quantity of snakes ; 
and the latter falling to the earth, 
caused the appearance of lightning. 
"Voila une philosophie bien nou- 
velle ! " exclaims the astonished Jes- 
uit. 



Chap. I] 



THE INDIAN CHAEACTER. 



35 



give distinctness and harmony to its rites and symbols. 
To the Indian mind, ail nature was instinct with 
deity. A spirit was embodied in every mountain, lake, 
and cataract; every bird, beast, or reptile, every tree, 
shrub, or grass-blade, was endued with mystic influ- 
ence; yet this untutored pantheism did not exclude 
the conception of certain divinities, of incongruous and 
ever-shifting attributes. The sun, too, was a god, and 
the moon was a goddess. Conflicting powers of good 
and evil divided the universe ; but if, before the arrival 
of Europeans, the Indian recognized the existence of 
a one, almighty, self-existent Being, the Great Spirit, 
the Lord of Heaven and Earth, the belief was so 
vague and dubious as scarcely to deserve the name. 
His perceptions of moral good and evil were perplexed 
and shadowy ; and the belief in a state of future re- 
ward and punishment was by no means of universal 
prevalence. 1 

Of the Indian character, much has been written 
foolishly, and credulously believed. By the rhapsodies 
of poets, the cant of sentimentalists, and the extrava- 
gance of some who should have known better, a 
counterfeit image has been tricked out, which might 
seek in vain for its likeness through every corner of 
the habitable earth ; an image bearing no more re- 
semblance to its original than the monarch of the 
tragedy and the hero of the epic poem bear to their 
living prototypes in the palace and the camp. The 
shadows of his wilderness home, and the darker man- 
tle of his own inscrutable reserve, have made the In- 
dian warrior a wonder and a mystery. Yet to the 

1 Le Jeune, Schoolcraft, James, Mercier, Vimont, Lalleraant, Lafitau, 
Jarvis, Charlevoix, Sagard, Brebeuf, De Smet, etc 



36 



THE INDIAN CHARACTER. 



[Chap. I. 



eye of rational observation there is nothing unintel- 
ligible in him. He is full, it is true, of contradiction. 
He deems himself the centre of greatness and renown ; 
his pride is proof against the fiercest torments of fire 
and steel; and yet the same man would beg for a 
dram of whiskey, or pick up a crust of bread thrown 
to him like a dog, from the tent door of the travel- 
ler. At one moment, he is wary and cautious to the 
verge of cowardice ; at the next, he abandons himself 
to a very insanity of recklessness, and the habitual 
self-restraint which throws an impenetrable veil over 
emotion is joined to the wild, impetuous passions of 
a beast or a madman. 

Such inconsistencies, strange as they seem hi our 
eyes, when viewed under a novel aspect, are but the 
ordinary incidents of humanity. The qualities of the 
mind are not uniform in their action through all the 
relations of life. With different men, and different 
races of men, pride, valor, prudence, have different 
forms of manifestation, and where in one instance 
they lie dormant, in another they are keenly awake. 
The conjunction of greatness and littleness, meanness 
and pride, is older than the days of the patriarchs ; 
and such antiquated phenomena, > displayed under a 
new form hi the unreflecting, undisciplined mind of 
a savage, call for no special wonder, but should rather 
be classed with the other enigmas of the fathomless 
human heart. The dissecting knife of a Rochefou- 
cault might lay bare matters of no less curious obser- 
vation in the breast of every man. 

Nature has stamped the Indian with a hard and 
stern physiognomy. Ambition, revenge, envy, jealousy, 
are his ruling passions ; and his cold temperament is 
little exposed to those effeminate vices which are the 



Chap. I] 



THE INDIAN CHAEACTEE. 



37 



bane of milder races. With him revenge is an overpow- 
ering instinct ; nay, more, it is a point of honor and 
a duty. His pride sets all language at defiance. He 
loathes the thought of coercion; and few of his race 
have ever stooped to discharge a menial office. A wild 
love of liberty, an utter intolerance of control, lie at 
the basis of his character, and fire his whole ex- 
istence. Yet, in spite of this haughty independence, 
he is a devout hero-worshipper ; and high achieve- 
ment in war or policy touches a chord to which 
his nature never fails to respond. He looks up with 
admiring reverence to the sages and heroes of his 
tribe ; and it is this principle, joined to the respect 
for age, which springs from the patriarchal element 
in his social system, which, beyond all others, con- 
tributes union and harmony to the erratic members 
of an Indian community. With him the love of glory 
kindles into a burning passion ; and to allay its crav- 
ings, he will dare cold and famine, fire, tempest, tor- 
ture, and death itself. 

These generous traits are overcast by much that is 
dark, cold, and sinister, by sleepless distrust, and 
rankling jealousy. Treacherous himself, he is always 
suspicious of treachery in others. Brave as he is,- — 
and few of mankind are braver, — he will vent his pas- 
sion by a secret stab rather than an open blow. His 
warfare is full of ambuscade and stratagem; and he 
never rushes into battle with that joyous self-aban- 
donment, with which the warriors of the Gothic races 
flung themselves into the ranks of their enemies. In 
his feasts and his drinking-bouts we find none of that 
robust and full-toned mirth which reigned at the rude 
carousals of our barbaric ancestry. He is never jovial 

D 



38 



THE INDIAN CHARACTER, 



[Chap. I. 



iii his cups, and maudlin sorrow or maniacal rage is 
the sole result of his potations. 

Over all emotion he throws the veil of an iron self- 
control, originating in a peculiar . form of pride, and 
fostered by rigorous discipline from childhood up- 
ward. He is trained to conceal passion, and not to 
subdue it. The inscrutable warrior is aptly imaged 
by the hackneyed figure of a volcano covered with 
snow ; and no man can say when or where the wild- 
fire will burst forth. This shallow self-mastery serves 
to give dignity to public deliberation, and harmony to 
social life. Wrangling and quarrel are strangers to 
an Indian dwelling ; and while an assembly of the 
ancient Gauls was garrulous as a convocation of mag- 
pies, a Roman senate might have taken a lesson from 
the grave solemnity of an Indian council. In the 
midst of his family and friends, he hides affections, 
by nature none of the most tender, under a mask of 
icy coldness ; and in the torturing fires of his enemy, 
the haughty sufferer maintains to the last his look 
of grim defiance. 

His intellect is as peculiar as his moral organiza- 
tion. Among all savages, the powers of perception 
preponderate over those of reason and analysis; but 
this is more especially the case with the Indian. An 
acute judge of character, at least of such parts of it 
as his experience enables him to comprehend; keen 
to a proverb in all exercises of war and the chase, 
he seldom traces effects to their causes, or follows out 
actions to their remote results. Though a close ob- 
server of external nature, he no sooner attempts to 
account for her phenomena than he involves himself 
in the most ridiculous absurdities ; and quite content 



Chap. I.] 



THE INDIAN CHAR AC TEE. 



39 



with these puerilities, he has not the least desire to 
push his inquiries further. His curiosity, abundantly 
active within its own narrow circle, is dead to all 
things else ; and to attempt rousing it from its torpor 
is but a bootless task. He seldom takes cognizance 
of general or abstract ideas ; and his language has 
scarcely the power to express them, except through 
the medium of figures drawn from the external world, 
and often highly picturesque and forcible. The ab- 
sence of reflection makes him grossly improvident, 
and unfits him for pursuing any complicated scheme 
of war or policy. 

Some races of men seem moulded in wax, soft and 
melting, at once plastic and feeble. Some races, like 
some metals, combine the greatest flexibility with the 
greatest strength. But the Indian is hewn out of a 
rock. You cannot change the form without destruc- 
tion of the substance. Such, at least, has too often 
proved the case. Races of inferior energy have pos- 
sessed a power of expansion and assimilation to which 
he is a stranger; and it is this fixed and rigid qual- 
ity which has proved his ruin. He will not learn 
the arts of civilization, and he and his forest must 
perish together. The stem, unchanging features of 
his mind excite our admiration, from their very im- 
mutability; and we look with deep interest on the 
fate of this irreclaimable son of the wilderness, the 
child who will not be weaned from the breast of his 
rugged mother. And our interest increases when we 
discern in the unhappy wanderer, mingled among his 
vices, the germs of heroic virtues — a hand bountiful 
to bestow, as it is rapacious to seize, and, even in ex- 
tremest famine, imparting its last morsel to a fellow- 



40 



THE INDIAN CHAKACTEK. 



[Chap. I. 



sufferer; a heart which, strong in friendship as in 
hate, thinks it not too much to lay down life for its 
chosen comrade ; a soul true to its own idea of honor, 
and burning with an unquenchable thirst for great- 
ness and renown. 

The imprisoned lion in the showman's cage differs 
not more widely from the lord of the desert, than the 
beggarly frequenter of frontier garrisons and dram- 
shops differs from the proud denizen of the woods. 
It is in his native wilds alone that the Indian must 
be seen and studied. Thus to depict him is the aim 
of the ensuing History; and if, from the shades of 
rock and forest, the savage features should look too 
grimly forth, it is because the clouds of a tempestu- 
ous war have cast upon the picture their murky 
shadows and lurid fires. 



CHAPTEB II. 



FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. 

The American colonies of France and England 
grew up to maturity under widely different auspices. 
Canada, the offspring of Church, and State, nursed 
from infancy in the lap of power, its puny strength 
fed with artificial stimulants, its movements guided 
by rule and discipline, its limbs trained to martial 
exercise, languished, in spite of all, from the lack of 
vital sap and energy. The colonies of England, out- 
cast and neglected, but strong in native vigor and 
self-connding courage, grew yet more strong with con- 
flict and with striving, and developed the rugged pro- 
portions and unwieldy strength of a youthful giant. 

In the valley of the St. Lawrence, and along the 
coasts of the Atlantic, adverse principles contended 
for the mastery. Feudalism stood arrayed against De- 
mocracy ; Popery against Protestantism ; the sword 
against the ploughshare. The priest, the soldier, and 
the noble, ruled in Canada. The ignorant, light- 
hearted Canadian peasant knew nothing and cared 
nothing about popular rights and civil liberties. Born 
to obey, he lived in contented submission, without the 
wish or the capacity for self-rule. Power, centred 
in the heart of the system, left the masses inert. 
The settlements along the margin of the St. Lawrence 
were like a far-extended camp, where an army lay at 
6 d # 



~2 



PRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [Chap. II. 



rest, ready for the march or the battle, and where 
war and adventure, not trade and tillage, seemed the 
chief aims of life. The lords of the soil were noble- 
men, for the most part soldiers, or the sons of sol- 
diers, proud and ostentatious, thriftless and poor ; 
and the people were their vassals. Over every clus- 
ter of small white houses glittered the sacred emblem 
of the cross. The church, the convent, and the road- 
side shrine were seen at every turn ; and in the towns 
and villages, one met each moment the black robe of 
the Jesuit, the gray garb of the Recollet, and the 
formal habit of the Ursuline nun. The names of 
saints, St. Joseph, St. Ignatius, St. Francis, were per- 
petuated in the capes, rivers, and islands, the forts 
and villages of the land, and, with every day, crowds 
of simple worshippers knelt in adoration before the 
countless altars of the Roman faith. 

If we search the world for the sharpest contrast to 
the spiritual and temporal vassalage of Canada, we 
shall find it among her immediate neighbors, the stern 
Puritans of New England, where the spirit of non- 
confoiTnity was sublimed to a fiery essence, and where 
the love of liberty and the hatred of power burned 
with sevenfold heat. The English colonist, with 
thoughtful brow and limbs hardened with toil; call- 
ing no man master, yet bowing reverently to the law 
which he himself had made; patient and laborious, 
and seeking for the solid comforts rather than the 
ornaments of life ; no lover of war, yet, if need were, 
fighting with a stubborn, indomitable courage, and 
then bending once more with steadfast energy to his 
farm, or Ms merchandise, — such a man might well be 
deemed the very pith and marrow of a commonwealth. 

In every quality of efficiency and strength, the 



Chap. II ] 



THE FRENCH CANADIANS. 



43 



Canadian fell miserably below his rival; but in all 
that pleases the eye and interests the imagination, he 
far surpassed him. Buoyant and gay, like his ances- 
try of France, he made the frozen wilderness ring 
with merriment, answered the surly howling of the 
pine forest with peals of laughter, and warmed with 
revelry the groaning ice of the St. Lawrence. Care- 
less and thoughtless, he lived happy in the midst of 
poverty, content if he could but gain the means to 
fill his tobacco pouch, and decorate the cap of his 
mistress with a painted ribbon. The example of a beg- 
gared nobility, who, proud and penniless, could only 
assert their rank by idleness and ostentation, was not 
lost upon him. A rightful heir to French bravery 
and French restlessness, he had an eager love of wan- 
dering and adventure ; and this propensity found am- 
ple scope in the service of the fur-trade, the engrossing 
occupation and chief source of income to the colony. 
When the priest of St. Ann's had shrived him of his 
sins; when, after the parting carousal, he embarked 
with his comrades in the deep-laden canoe; when 
their oars kept time to the measured cadence of their 
song, and the blue, sunny bosom of the Ottawa opened 
before them; when their frail bark quivered among 
the milky foam and black rocks of the rapid; and 
when, around their camp-fire, they wasted half the 
night with jests and laughter, — then the Canadian was 
in his element. His footsteps explored the farthest 
hiding-places of the wilderness. In the evening dance, 
his red cap mingled with the scalp-locks and feathers 
of the Indian braves ; or, stretched on a bear-skin by 
the side of his dusky mistress, he watched the gam- 
bols of his hybrid offspring, in happy oblivion of the 
partner whom he left unnumbered leagues behind. 



44 



FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [Chap. II. 



The fur trade engendered a peculiar class of rest- 
less bush-rangers, more akin to Indians than to white 
men. Those who had once felt the fascinations of 
the forest were unfitted ever after for a life of quiet 
labor; and with this spirit the whole colony was in- 
fected. From this cause, no less than from occasional 
wars with the English, and repeated attacks of the 
Iroquois, the agriculture of the country was sunk to 
a low ebb; while feudal exactions, a ruinous system 
of monopoly, and the intermeddlings of arbitrary power, 
cramped every branch of industry. 1 Yet, by the zeal 
of priests and the daring enterprise of soldiers and 
explorers, Canada, though sapless and infirm, spread 
forts and missions through all the western wilder- 
ness. Feebly rooted in the soil, she thrust out branches 
which overshadowed half America; a magnificent ob- 
ject to the eye, but one which the first whirlwind 
would prostrate in the dust. 

Such excursive enterprise was alien to the genius 
of the British colonies. Daring activity was rife among 
them, but it did not aim at the founding of military 
outposts and forest missions. By the force of ener- 
getic industry, their population swelled with an un- 
heard-of rapidity, their wealth increased in a yet greater 
ratio, and their promise of future greatness opened 
with every advancing year. But it was a greatness 
rather of peace than of war. The free institutions, 
the independence of authority, which were the source 
of their increase, were adverse to that unity of coun- 
sel and promptitude of action which are the soul of 

i Raynal, Hist. Indies, VII. 87, eighteenth century. For the feudal 

(Lond. 1783.) tenure as existing in Canada, see 

V Charlevoix, Voyages, Letter X. Bouchette, I. Chap. XIV., (Lond. 

The Swedish traveller Kalra gives 1831,) and Garneau, Hist. Canada, 

an interesting account of manners in Book III. Chap. III. 
Canada, about the middle of the 



Chap. II] 



EELIGIOUS ZEAL OF CANADA. 



45 



war. It was far otherwise with their military rival. 
France had her Canadian forces well in hand. They 
had but one will, and that was the will of a mistress. 
Now here, now there, hi sharp and rapid onset, they 
could assail the cumbrous masses and unwieldy strength 
of then: antagonists, as the king-bird attacks the eagle, 
or the swordfish the whale. Between two such com- 
batants the strife must needs be a long one. 

Canada was a true child of the Church, baptized in 
infancy and faithful to the last. Champlain, the found- 
er of Quebec, a man of noble spirit, a statesman and 
a soldier, was deeply imbued with fervid piety. " The 
saving of a soul," he would often say, " is worth more 
than the conquest of an empire; " 1 and to forward the 
work of conversion, he brought with him four Fran- 
ciscan monks from France. At a later period, the 
task of colonization would have been abandoned, but 
for the hope of casting the pure light of the faith 
over the gloomy wastes of heathendom. 2 All France 
was filled with the zeal of proselytism. Men and 
women of exalted rank lent their countenance to the 
holy work. From many an altar daily petitions were 
offered for the well-being of the mission; and in the 
Holy House of Mont Martre, a nun lay prostrate day 
and night before the shrine, praying for the conversion 
of Canada. 3 In one convent, thirty nuns offered them- 
selves for the labors of the wilderness ; and priests 
flocked in crowds to the colony. 4 The powers of 
darkness took alarm ; and when a ship, freighted with 
the apostles of the faith, was fearfully tempest-tost 



1 Charlevoix, Nouv. France, 1. 197. 

2 Charlevoix, I. 198. 

3 A. D. 1635. Relation des Hu- 
rons, 1636, p. 2. 

4 "Vivre en la Nouvelle France 



c'est a vray dire vivre dans le sein 
de Dieu." Such are the extravagant 
words of Le Jeune, in his report of 
the year 1635. 



46 



FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. 



[Chap. II. 



upon lier voyage, the storm was ascribed to the malice 
of demons, trembling for the safety of their ancient 
empire. 

The general enthusiasm was not without its fruits. 
The Church could pay back with usury all that she 
received of aid and encouragement from the temporal 
power; and the ambition of Louis XIII. could not 
have devised, a more efficient enginery for the accom- 
plishment of its schemes, than that supplied by the 
zeal of the devoted propagandists. The priest and the 
soldier went hand in hand; and the cross and the 
fleur de lis were planted side by side. 

Foremost among the envoys of the faith were the 
members of that singular order, who, in another hem- 
isphere, had already done so much to turn back the 
advancing tide of religious freedom, and strengthen 
the arm of Home. To the Jesuits was assigned, for 
many years, the entire charge of the Canadian mis- 
sions, to the exclusion of the Franciscans, early labor- 
ers in the same barren field. Inspired with a self- 
devoting zeal to snatch souls from perdition, and win 
new empires to the cross ; casting from them every 
hope of earthly pleasure or earthly aggrandizement, 
the Jesuit fathers buried themselves in deserts, facing 
death with the courage of heroes, and enduring tor- 
ments with the constancy of martyrs. Their story is 
replete with marvels — miracles of patient suffering 
and daring enterprise. They were the pioneers of 
Northern America. 1 We see them among the frozen 
forests of Acadia, struggling on snow-shoes, with some 
wandering Algonquin horde, or crouching in the 

i See Jesuit Relations and Lettres Chap. II. ; and Bancroft, Hist. U. S. 
Edifiantes ; also, Charlevoix, passim ; Chap. XX. 
Garneau, Hist. Canada, Book IV. 



Chap. H.J 



JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 



47 



crowded hunting-lodge, half stifled in the smoky den, 
and battling with troops of famished dogs for the 
last morsel of sustenance. Again we see the black- 
robed priest wading among the white rapids of the 
Ottawa, toiling with his savage comrades to drag 
the canoe against the headlong water. Again, radiant 
in the vestments of his priestly office, he administers 
the sacramental bread to kneeling crowds of plumed 
and painted proselytes in the black forests of the 
Hurons; or, bearing his life in his hand, he carries 
his sacred mission into the strong-holds of the Iro- 
quois, like a man who invades unarmed a den of 
angry tigers. Jesuit explorers traced the St. Law- 
rence to its source, and said masses among the soli- 
tudes of Lake Superior, where the boldest fur-trader 
scarcely dared to follow. They planted missions at 
St. Mary's and at Michillimackinac ; 1 and one of their 
fraternity, the illustrious Marquette, discovered the 
Mississippi, and opened a new theatre to the bound- 
less ambition of France. 2 

The path of the missionary was a thorny and a 
bloody one ; and a life of weary apostleship was often 
crowned with a frightful martyrdom. Jean de Bre- 
beuf and Gabriel Lallemant preached the faith among 
the villages of the Hurons, when their terror-stricken 
flock were overwhelmed by an irruption of the Iro- 
quois. 3 The missionaries might have fled ; but, true to 
their sacred function, they remained behind to aid the 
wounded and baptize the dying. Both were made cap- 
tive, and both were doomed to the fiery torture. Bre- 
beuf, a veteran soldier of the cross, met his fate with 
an undaunted composure, which amazed his murderers, 



1 A.D. 1668-167L 



2 A. D. 1673, 



3 A. D. 1649, 



48 



FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [Chap. II. 



With unflinching constancy he endured torments 
too horrible to be recorded, and died calmly as a 
martyr of the early church, or a war-chief of the 
Mohawks. 

The slender frame of Lallemant, a man young in 
years and gentle in spirit, was enveloped in blazing 
savin-bark. Again and again the fire was extin- 
guished; again and again it was kindled afresh; and 
with such fiendish ingenuity were his torments pro- 
tracted, that he lingered for seventeen hours before 
death came to his relief. 1 

Isaac Jogues, taken captive by the Iroquois, was 
led from canton to canton, and village to village, en- 
during fresh torments and indignities at every stage 
of his progress. 2 Men, women, and children vied with 
each other in ingenious malignity. Redeemed, at 
length, by the humane exertions of a Dutch officer, 
he repaired to France, where his disfigured person 
and mutilated hands told the story of his sufferings. 
But the promptings of a sleepless conscience urged 
him to return and complete the work he had begun; 
to iUumine the moral darkness upon which, during 
the months of his disastrous captivity, he fondly 
hoped that he had thrown some rays of light. Once 
more he bent his footsteps towards the scene of his 
living martyrdom, saddened with a deep presentiment 
that he was advancing to his death. Nor were his 
forebodings untrue. In a village of the Mohawks, the 
blow of a tomahawk closed his mission and his life. 3 

Such intrepid self-devotion may well call forth our 
highest admiration ; but when we seek for the results 
of these toils and sacrifices, we shall seek in vain 



i Charlevoix, I. 292. 



2 A. D. 1642. 



3 Charlevoix, I. 238-276. 



Chap. IL] 



JESUIT MISSIONARIES. 



49 



Patience and zeal were thrown away upon lethargic 
minds and stubborn hearts. The reports of the Jes- 
uits, it is true, display a copious list of conversions; 
but the zealous fathers reckoned the number of con- 
versions by the number of baptisms ; and, as Le Clercq 
observes, with no less truth than candor, an Indian 
would be baptized ten times a day for a pint of 
brandy or a pound of tobacco. Neither can more 
flattering conclusions be drawn from the alacrity which 
they showed to adorn their persons with crucifixes 
and medals. The glitter of the trinkets pleased the 
fancy of the warrior; and, with the emblem of man's 
salvation pendent from his neck, he was often at 
heart as thorough a heathen as when he wore in its 
place a necklace made of the dried forefingers of his 
enemies. At the present day, with the exception of 
a few insignificant bands of converted Indians in 
Lower Canada, not a vestige of early Jesuit influence 
can be found among the tribes. The seed was sown 
upon a rock. 1 

While the church was reaping but a scanty harvest, 
the labors of the missionaries were fruitful of profit 
to the monarch of France. The Jesuit led the van 
of French colonization ; and at Detroit, Michillimack- 
inac, St. Mary's, Green Bay, and other outposts of 
the west, the establishment of a mission was the pre- 
cursor of military occupancy. In other respects no 
less, the labors of the wandering missionaries advanced 
the welfare of the colony. Sagacious and keen of 
sight, with faculties stimulated by zeal and sharpened 
by peril, they made faithful report of the temper and 
movements of the distant tribes among whom they 

1 For remarks on the futility of Jesuit missionary efforts, see Halkett, 
Historical Notes, Chap. IV. 

7 E 



50 



FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [Chap. II. 



were distributed. The influence which they often 
gained was exerted hi behalf of the government un- 
der whose auspices their missions were carried on; 
and they strenuously labored to win over the tribes 
to the French alliance, and alienate them from the 
heretic English. In all things they approved them- 
selves the stanch and steadfast auxiliaries of the 
imperial power; and the Marquis du Quesne observed 
of the missionary Picquet, that in his single person 
he was worth ten regiments. 1 

Among the English colonies, the pioneers of civili- 
zation were for the most part rude, yet vigorous men, 
impelled to enterprise by native restlessness, or lured 
by the hope of gain. Their range was limited, and 
seldom extended far beyond the outskirts of the set- 
tlements. With Canada it was far otherwise. There 
was no energy in the bulk of her people. The court 
and the army supplied the main springs of her vital ac- 
tion, and the hands which planted the lilies of France 
in the heart of the wilderness had never guided the 
ploughshare or wielded the spade. The love of adven- 
ture, the ambition of new discovery, the hope of mili- 
tary advancement, urged men of place and culture to 
embark on bold and comprehensive enterprise. Many 
a gallant gentleman, many a nobleman of France, 
trod the black mould and oozy mosses of the forest 
with feet that had pressed the carpets of Versailles. 
They whose youth had passed in camps and courts 
grew gray among the wigwams of savages; and the 
lives of Castine, Joncaire, and Priber 2 are invested 
with all the interest of romance. 

1 Picquet was a priest of St. Sal- Adair, 240. I have seen mention of 
pice. For a sketch of his life, see this man in contemporary provincial 
Lett. Edif. XIV. newspapers, where he is sometimes 

2 For an account of Priber, see spoken of as a disguised Jesuit. He 



Chap. II] 



LA SALLE. 



51 



Conspicuous in the annals of Canada stands the 
memorable name of Robert Cavalier de La Salle, the 
man who, beyond all his compeers, contributed to 
expand the boundary of French empire in the west. 
La Salle commanded at Fort Frontenac, erected near 
the outlet of Lake Ontario, on its northern shore, 
and then forming the most advanced military outpost 
of the colony. Here he dwelt among Indians, and 
half-breeds, traders, voyageurs, bush-rangers, and Fran- 
ciscan monks. He ruled his little empire with ab- 
solute sway, enforcing respect by his energy, but 
offending many by his rigor. Here he brooded upon 
the grand design which had long engaged his thoughts. 
He had resolved to complete the achievement of 
Father Marquette, to trace the unknown Mississippi 
to its mouth, to plant the standard of his king in 
the newly-discovered regions, and found colonies which 
should make good the sovereignty of France from the 
Frozen Ocean to Mexico. Ten years of his early life 
had passed in connection with the Jesuits, and his 
strong mind had hardened to iron under the disci- 
pline of that relentless school. To a sound judg- 
ment, and a penetrating sagacity, he joined a boundless 
enterprise and an adamantine constancy of purpose. 
But his nature was stern and austere; he was prone 
to rule by fear rather than by love ; he took counsel 
of no man, and chilled all who approached him by 
his cold reserve. 

At the close of the year 1678, his preparations were 
complete, and he despatched his attendants to the 
banks of the River Niagara, whither he soon followed 
in person. Here he erected a little fort of palisades, 

took up his residence among the labored to gain them over to the 
Cherokees about the year 1736, and French interest. 



52 



FKANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. 



[Chap. II. 



and was the first military tenant of a spot destined to 
momentous consequence in future wars. Two leagues 
above the cataract, on the western bank of the river, 
he built the first vessel which ever explored the 
waters of the upper lakes. 1 Her name was the Griffin, 
and her burden was sixty tons. On the seventh of 
August, 1679, she began her adventurous voyage amid 
the speechless wonder of the Indians, who stood 
amazed, alike at the unwonted size of the wooden 
canoe, at the flash and roar of the cannon from her 
decks, and at the carved figure of a griffin, which, 
with expanded wings, sat crouched upon her prow. 
She bore on her course along the virgin waters of 
Lake Erie, through the beautiful windings of the 
Detroit, and among the restless billows of Lake Hu- 
ron, where a furious tempest had well nigh ingulfed 
her. La Salle pursued his voyage along Lake Michi- 
gan in birch canoes, and, after protracted suffering 
from famine and exposure, reached its southern ex- 
tremity on the eighteenth of October. 2 

He led his followers to the banks of the river now 
called the St. Joseph. Here, again, he built a fort; 
and here, in after years, the Jesuits placed a mission 
and the government a garrison. Thence he pushed 
on into the unknown region of the Illinois; and now 
dangers and difficulties began to thicken about him. 
Indians threatened hostility; his men lost heart, clam- 
ored, grew mutinous, and repeatedly deserted; and, 
worse than all, nothing was heard of the vessel which 
had been sent back to Canada for necessary supplies. 
Weeks wore on, and doubt ripened into certainty. 
She had foundered among the storms of these wil- 

1 Sparks, Life of La Salle, 21. 

2 Hennepin, New Discovery, 98, (Lond. 1698.) 



Chap. II] LA SALLE. 53 

derness oceans ; and her loss seemed to involve the 
ruin of the enterprise, since it was vain to proceed 
farther without the expected supplies. In this disas- 
trous crisis, La Salle embraced a resolution eminently 
characteristic of his intrepid temper. Leaving his men 
in charge of a subordinate at a fort which he had 
built on the BAver Illinois, he turned his face again 
towards Canada. He traversed on foot twelve hun- 
dred miles of frozen forest, crossing rivers, toiling 
through snow-drifts, wading ice-encumbered swamps, 
sustaining life by the fruits of the chase, and threat- 
ened day and night by lurking enemies. He gained 
his destination, but it was only to encounter a fresh 
storm of calamities. His enemies had been busy in 
his absence ; a malicious report had gone abroad that 
he was dead; his creditors had seized his property; 
and the stores on which he most relied had been 
wrecked at sea, or lost among the rapids of the St. 
Lawrence. Still he battled against adversity with his 
wonted vigor, and in Count Frontenac, the governor 
of the province, — ■ a spirit kindred to his own, — he 
found a firm friend. Every difficulty gave way before 
him ; and with fresh supplies of men, stores, and am- 
munition, he again embarked for the Illinois. Hound- 
ing the vast circuit of the lakes, he reached the mouth 
of the St. Joseph, and hastened with anxious speed 
to the fort where he had left his followers. The 
place was empty. Not a man remained. Terrified, 
despondent, and embroiled in Indian wars, they had 
fled to seek peace and safety, he knew not whither. 

Once more the dauntless discoverer turned back 
towards Canada. Once more he stood before Count 
Frontenac, and once more bent all his resources and 
all his credit to gain means for the prosecution of 

E* 



54 FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [Chap. II. 

his enterprise. He succeeded. With his little flotilla 
of canoes, he left his fort, at the outlet of Lake On- 
tario, and slowly retraced those hiterminable waters, 
and lines of forest-bounded shore, which had grown 
drearily familiar to his eyes. Fate at length seemed 
tired of the conflict with so stubborn an adversary. 
All went prosperously with the voyagers. They passed 
the lakes in safety ; they crossed the rough portage to 
the waters of the Illinois; they followed its winding 
channel, and descended the turbid eddies of the Mis- 
sissippi, received with various welcome by the scattered 
tribes who dwelt along its banks. Now the waters 
grew bitter to the taste; now the trampling of the 
surf was heard; and now the broad ocean opened 
upon their sight, and their goal was won. On the 
ninth of April, 1682, with his followers under arms, 
amid the firing of musketry, the chanting of the Te 
Deum, and shouts of " Vive le roi," La Salle took 
formal possession of the vast valley of the Missis- 
sippi, in the name of Louis the Great, King of France 
and Navarre. 1 

The first stage of his enterprise was accomplished, 
but labors no less arduous remained behind. Repair- 
ing to the court of France, he was welcomed with 
richly merited favor, and soon set sail for the mouth 
of the Mississippi, with a squadron of vessels amply 
freighted with men and material for the projected 
colony. But the folly and obstinacy of a worthless 
naval commander blighted his fairest hopes. The 
squadron missed the mouth of the river; and the 
wreck of one of the vessels, and the desertion of the 
commander, completed the ruin of the expedition. 



1 Proces Verbal, in appendix to Sparks' La Salle. 



Chap. II] 



FRENCH POSTS IN THE WEST. 



55 



La Salle landed, with a band of half-famished follow- 
ers, on the coast of Texas; and while he was toiling 
with nntired energy for their relief, a few vindictive 
miscreants conspired against him, and a shot from a 
traitor's mnsket closed the career of the iron-hearted 
discoverer. I 

It was left with another to complete the enterprise 
on which he had staked his life; and, in the year 
1699, Lemoine d' Iberville planted the germ whence 
sprang the colony of Louisiana. 1 1 

Years passed on. In spite of a vicious plan of 
government, in spite of the bursting of the ever-mem- 
orable Mississippi bubble, the new colony grew in 
wealth and strength. And now it remained for 
France to unite the two extremities of her broad 
American domain, to extend forts and settlements 
across the fertile solitudes between the valley of the 
St. Lawrence and the mouth of the Mississippi, and 
intrench herself among the forests which lie west of 
the Alleghanies, before the swelling tide of British 
colonization could overflow those mountain barriers. 
At the middle of the eighteenth century, her mighty 
project was fast advancing towards completion. The 
great lakes and streams, the thoroughfares of the 
wilderness, were seized and guarded by a series of 
posts distributed with admirable skill. A fort on the 
strait of Niagara commanded the great entrance to 
the whole interior country. Another at Detroit con- 
trolled the passage from Lake Erie to the north. 
Another at St. Mary's debarred all hostile access to 
Lake Superior. Another at Michillimackinac secured 
the mouth of Lake Michigan. A post at Green Bay, 
and one at St. Joseph, guarded the two routes to the 

1 Du Pratz, Hist. Louisiana, 5. Charlevoix, II. 259. 



56 



FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN AMERICA. [Chap. II. 



Mississippi, by way of the Rivers Wisconsin and Il- 
linois; while two posts on the Wabash, and one on 
the Maumee, made France the mistress of the great 
trading highway from Lake Erie to the Ohio. At 
Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and elsewhere in the Illinois, 
little French settlements had sprang up; and as the 
canoe of the voyager descended the Mississippi, he 
saw, at rare intervals, along its swampy margin, a few 
small stockade forts, half buried amid the redundancy 
of forest vegetation, until, as he approached Natchez, 
the dwellings of the habitans of Louisiana began to 
appear. 

The forest posts of France were not exclusively of 
a military character. Adjacent to most of them, one 
would have found a little cluster of Canadian dwell- 
ings, whose tenants lived under the protection of the 
garrison, and obeyed the arbitrary will of the com- 
mandant; an authority which, however, was seldom 
exerted in a despotic spirit. In these detached settle- 
ments, there was no principle of increase. The charac- 
ter of the people, and of the government which ruled 
them, were alike unfavorable to it. Agriculture was 
neglected for the more congenial pursuits of the fur- 
trade, and the restless, roving Canadians, scattered 
abroad on their wild vocation, allied themselves to 
Indian women, and filled the woods with a mongrel 
race of bush-rangers. 

Thus far secure in the west, France next essayed 
to gain foothold upon the sources of the Ohio, and, 
about the year 1748, the sagacious Count Galissonniere 
proposed to bring over ten thousand peasants from 
France, and plant them in the valley of that beau- 
tiful river, and on the borders of the lakes. 1 But 



i Smith, Hist. Canada, I. 208. 



Chap. II] 



THEIR APPROACHING COLLISION. 



57 



while at Quebec, in the Castle of St. Louis, sol- 
diers and statesmen were revolving schemes like this, 
the slowly-moving power of England bore on with 
silent progress from the east. Already the British 
settlements were creeping along the valley of the Mo- 
hawk, and ascending the eastern slopes of the Alie- 
ghanies. Forests crashing to the axe, dark spires of 
smoke ascending from autumnal fires, were heralds of 
the advancing host; and while, on one side of the 
Alleghanies, Celeron cle Bienville was burying plates 
of lead, engraved with the arms of France, the ploughs 
and axes of Virginian woodsmen were enforcing a surer 
title on the other. The adverse powers were drawing 
near. The hour of collision was at hand. 
8 



CHAPTER III. 

THE FRENCH, THE ENGLISH, AND THE INDIANS. 

The French colonists of Canada held, from the 
beginning, a peculiar intimacy of relation with the 
Indian tribes. With the English colonists it was far 
otherwise; and the difference sprang from several 
causes. The far-trade was the life of Canada; agri- 
culture and commerce were the chief fountains of 
wealth to the British provinces. The Romish zealots 
of Canada burned for the conversion of the heathen; 
their heretic rivals were fired with no such ardor. 
And finally, while the ambition of France grasped at 
empire over the farthest deserts of the west, the 
steady industry of the English colonist was contented 
to cultivate and improve a narrow strip of seaboard. 
Thus it happened that the farmer of Massachusetts 
and the Virginian planter were conversant with only 
a few bordering tribes, while the priests and emissa- 
ries of France were roaming the prairies with the 
buffalo-hunting Pawnees, or lodging in the winter 
cabins of the Dahcotah ; and swarms of savages, whose 
uncouth names were strange to English ears, descended 
yearly from the north, to bring their beaver and otter 
skins to the market of Montreal. 

The position of Canada invited intercourse with the 
interior, and eminently favored her schemes of com- 
merce and policy. The River St. Lawrence, and the 



Chap, ni.] THE IROQUOIS — CHAMPLAIN. 



59 



chain of the great lakes, opened a vast extent of in- 
land navigation; while their tributary streams, inter- 
locking with the branches of the Mississippi, afforded 
ready access to that mighty river, and gave the rest- 
less voyager free range over half the continent. But 
these advantages were well nigh neutralized. Nature 
opened the way, but a watchful and terrible enemy 
guarded the portal. The forests south of Lake On- 
tario gave harborage to the five tribes of the Iro- 
quois, implacable foes of Canada. They waylaid her 
trading parties, routed her soldiers, murdered her 
missionaries, and spread havoc and woe through all 
her settlements. 

It was an evil hour for Canada, when, on the 
twenty-eighth of May, 1609, 1 Samuel de Champlain, 
impelled by his own adventurous spirit, departed from 
the hamlet of Quebec to follow a war-party of Al- 
gonquins against their hated enemy, the Iroquois. 
Ascending the Sorel, and passing the rapids at Cham- 
bly, he embarked on the lake which bears his name, 
and, with two French attendants, steered southward, 
with his savage associates, toward the rocky promon- 
tory of Ticonderoga. They moved with all the pre- 
caution of Indian warfare; when, at length, as night 
was closing in, they descried a band of the Iroquois 
in their large canoes of elm bark approaching through 
the gloom. Wild yells from either side announced 
the mutual discovery. Both parties hastened to the 
shore, and all night long the- forest resounded with 
their discordant war-songs and fierce whoops of defi- 
ance. Day dawned, and the fight began. Bounding 
from tree to tree, the Iroquois pressed forward to the 



1 Champlain, Voyages, 136, (Paris, 1632.) Charlevoix, I. 142. 



60 



THE FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND INDIANS. [Chap. HI. 



attack; but when Champlain advanced from among 
the Algonquins, and stood full in sight before them, 
with his strange attire, his shining breastplate, and 
features unlike their own; when they saw the flash 
of his arquebuse, and beheld two of their chiefs fall 
dead, they could not contain their terror, but fled for 
shelter into the depths of the wood. The Algonquins 
pursued, slaying many hi the flight, and the victory 
was complete. 

Such was the first collision between the white men 
and the Iroquois ; and Champlain flattered himself 
that the latter had learned for the future to respect 
the arms of France. He was fatally deceived. The 
Iroquois recovered from their terrors, but they never 
forgave the injury; and yet it would be unjust to 
charge upon Champlain the origin of the desolating 
wars which were soon to scourge the colony. The 
Indians of Canada, friends and neighbors of the 
French, had long been harassed by inroads of the 
fierce confederates, and under any circumstances the 
French must soon have become parties to the quarrel. 

Whatever may have been its origin, the war was 
fruitful of misery to the youthful colony. The passes 
were beset by ambushed war-parties. The routes be- 
tween Quebec and Montreal were watched with tiger- 
like vigilance. Bloodthirsty warriors prowled about 
the outskirts of the settlements. Again and again the 
miserable people, driven within the palisades of their 
forts, looked forth upon wasted harvests and blazing 
roofs. The Island of Montreal was swept with fire 
and steel. The fur-trade was interrupted, since for 
months together all communication was cut off with 
the friendly tribes of the west. Agriculture was 
checked; the fields lay fallow, and frequent famine 



CHAP.m.] EXPEDITION OF COUNT FRONTENAC. 61 

was the necessary result. 1 The name of the Iroquois 
became a by-word of horror through the colony, and 
to the suffering Canadians they seemed no better than 
troops of incarnate fiends. Revolting rites and mon- 
strous superstitions were imputed to them ; and, among 
the rest, it was currently believed that they cherished 
the custom of immolating young children, burning 
them with fire, and drinking the ashes mixed with 
water to increase their bravery. 2 Yet the wildest 
imaginations could scarcely exceed the truth. At the 
attack of Montreal, they placed infants over the em- 
bers, and forced the wretched mothers to turn the 
spit ; 3 and those who fell within their clutches endured 
torments too hideous for description. Their ferocity 
was equalled only by their courage and address. 

At intervals, the afflicted colony found respite from 
its sufferings; and through the efforts of the Jesuits, 
fair hopes began to rise of propitiating the terrible 
foe. At one time, the influence of the priests availed 
so far, that under their auspices a French colony 
was formed in the very heart of the Iroquois country ; 
but the settlers were soon forced to a precipitate 
flight, and the war broke out afresh. 4 The French, 
on their part, were not idle ; they faced their assail- 
ants with characteristic gallantry. Courcelles, Tracy, 
De la Barre, and De Nonville invaded by turns, with 
various success, the forest haunts of the confederates ; 
and at length, in the year 1696, the veteran Count 
Frontenac marched upon their cantons with all the 
force of Canada. Stemming the surges of La Chine, 
sweeping through the romantic channels of the Thou- 

1 Viraont, Colden, Charlevoix, pas- 3 Charlevoix, I. 549. 

sim. 4 A. D. 1654-1658. Doc. Hist. 

2 Vimont seems to believe the N. Y. I. 47. 
story. Rel. de la N. F. 1640, 195. 

F 



62 THE FRENCH, ENGLISH. AND INDIANS. [Chap. m. 

sand Islands, and over the glimmering surface of Lake 
Ontario, and, trailing in long array up the current of 
the . Oswego, they disembarked on the margin of the 
Lake of Onondaga, and, startling the woodland echoes 
with the unwonted clangor of their trumpets, urged 
their perilous march through the mazes of the for- 
est. Never had those solitudes beheld so strange a 
pageantry. The Indian allies, naked to the waist and 
horribly painted, adorned with streaming scalp-locks 
and fluttering plumes, stole crouching among the 
thickets, or peered with lynx-eyed vision through the 
labyrinths of foliage. Scouts and forest-rangers scoured 
the woods in front and flank of the marching columns 
— men trained among the hardships of the far-trade, 
thin, sinewy, and strong, arrayed in wild costume of 
beaded moccason, scarlet leggin, and frock of buckskin, 
fantastically garnished with many-colored embroidery 
of porcupine. Then came the levies of the colony, 
in gray capotes and gaudy sashes, and the trained 
battalions from old France in burnished cuirass and 
head-piece, veterans of European wars. Plumed cava- 
liers were there, who had followed the standards of 
Conde or Turenne, and who, even in the depths of a 
wilderness, scorned to lay aside the martial foppery 
which bedecked the camp and court of Louis the 
Magnificent. The stern commander was borne along 
upon a litter in the midst, his locks bleached with years, 
but his eye kindling with the quenchless fire which, 
like a furnace, burned hottest when its fuel was almost 
spent. Thus, beneath the sepulchral arches of the for- 
est, through tangled thickets, and over prostrate trunks, 
the aged nobleman advanced to wreak his vengeance 
upon empty wigwams and deserted maize-fields. 1 



i Official Papers of the Expedition. Doc. Hist. N. Y. I. 323. 



Chap. HI] 



TRIUMPHS OF THE FRENCH. 



63 



Even the fierce courage of the Iroquois began to 
quail before these repeated attacks, while the grad- 
ual growth of the colony, and the arrival of troops 
from France, at length convinced them that they could 
not destroy Canada. With the opening of the eigh- 
teenth century, their rancor showed signs of abating ; 
and in the year 1726, by dint of skilful intrigue, 
the French succeeded in erecting a permanent mili- 
tary post at the important pass of Niagara, within 
the limits of the confederacy. 1 Meanwhile, hi spite 
of every obstacle, the power of France had rapidly 
extended its boundaries in the west. French influ- 
ence diffused itself through a thousand channels, among 
distant tribes, hostile, for the most part, to the dom- 
ineering Iroquois. Forts, mission-houses, and armed 
trading stations secured the principal passes. Traders, 
and coureurs des bois pushed their adventurous traf- 
fic into the wildest deserts; and French guns and 
hatchets, French beads and cloth, French tobacco and 
brandy, were known from where the stunted Esqui- 
maux burrowed in their snow caves, to where the 
Camanches scoured the plains of the south with their 
banditti cavalry. Still this far-extended commerce con- 
tinued to advance westward. In 1738, La Verandrye 
essayed to reach those mysterious mountains which, 
as the Indians alleged, lay beyond the arid deserts 
of the Missouri and the Saskatchawan. Indian hos- 
tility defeated his enterprise, but not before he had 
struck far out into .these unknown wilds, and formed 
a line of trading^^bsfs, one of which, Fort de la 
Heine, wagiffdanted on the Assinniboin, a hundred 
leagues Wyond Lake Winnipeg. 2 At that early pe- 



1 Doc. Hist. N. Y. I. 446. 



2 Gameau, II 388. 



64 



THE FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND INDIANS [Chap. III. 



riod, France left her footsteps upon the dreary wastes 
which even now have no other tenants than the In- 
dian buffalo-hunter or the roving trapper. 

The fur- trade of the English colonists opposed but 
feeble rivalry to that of their hereditary foes. At an 
early period, favored by the friendship of the Iro- 
quois, they attempted to open a traffic with the Al- 
gonquin tribes of the great lakes; and in the year 
1687, Major McGregory ascended with a boat load of 
goods to Lake Huron, where his appearance excited 
great commotion, and where he was promptly seized 
and imprisoned by a party of the French. 1 From 
this time forward, the English fur-trade languished, 
until the year 1725, when Governor Burnet, of New 
York, established a post on Lake Ontario, at the mouth 
of the River Oswego, whither, lured by the cheapness 
and excellence of the English goods, crowds of sav- 
ages soon congregated from every side, to the un- 
speakable annoyance of the French. 2 Meanwhile, a 
considerable commerce was springing up with the 
Cherokees and other tribes of the south ; and during 
the first half of the century, the people of Pennsyl- 
vania began to cross the Alleghanies, and carry on a 
lucrative traffic with the tribes of the Ohio. In 1749, 
La Jonquiere, the governor of Canada, learned, to his 
great indignation, that several English traders had 
reached Sandusky, and were exerting a bad influence 
upon the Indians of that quarter ■ 3 and two years later, 
he caused four of the intruders to^be seized near the 
Ohio, and sent prisoners to CfnafflP 1 

These early efforts of the English, corl^^rable as 

1 La Hontan, Voyages, I. 74. Col- 3 Smith, Hist. Canada, I. 214. 
<den, Memorial on the Fur-Trade. 

2 Doc. Hist. N. Y. I. 444. 



Chap, in.] 



THE ENGLISH AJ$~D THE IROQUOIS. 



65 



they were, can ill bear comparison with the vast ex- 
tent of the French interior commerce. In respect 
also to missionary enterprise, and the political influ- 
ence resulting from it, the French had every advantage 
over rivals whose zeal for conversion was neither kin- 
dled by fanaticism nor fostered by an ambitious gov- 
ernment. Eliot labored within call of Boston, while 
the heroic Brebeuf faced the ghastly perils of the 
western wilderness ; and the wanderings of Brainerd 
sink into insignificance compared with those of the 
devoted Rasles. Yet, in judging the relative merits 
of the Romish and Protestant missionaries, it must 
not be forgotten that while the former contented them- 
selves with sprinkling a few drops of water on the 
forehead of the warlike proselyte, the latter sought 
to wean him from his barbarism, and penetrate his 
savage heart with the truths of Christianity. 

In respect, also, to direct political influence, the 
advantage was wholly on the side of France. The 
English colonies, broken into separate governments, 
were incapable of exercising a vigorous and consist- 
ent Indian policy; and the measures of one govern- 
ment often clashed with those of another. Even in 
the separate provinces, the popular nature of the con- 
stitution and the quarrels of governors and assemblies 
were unfavorable to efficient action; and this was 
more especially the case in the province of New York, 
where the vicinity of the Iroquois rendered strenuous 
yet prudent measures of the utmost importance. The 
powerful confeclereSs^ating the French with bitter 
enmity, ^jpLifally inclined to the English alliance; 
and a proper treatment would have secured their firm 
and lasting friendship. But, at the early periods of 
her history, the assembly of New York was made up 
9 F* 



66 THE FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND INDIANS. [Chap. HI. 

in great measure of narrow-minded men, more eager 
to consult their own petty immediate interests than 
to pursue any far-sighted scheme of public welfare. 1 
Other causes conspired to injure the British interest 
in this quarter. The annual present sent from Eng- 
land to the Iroquois was often embezzled by corrupt 
governors or their favorites. 2 The proud chiefs were 
disgusted by the cold and haughty bearing of the 
English officials, and a pernicious custom prevailed 
of conducting Indian negotiations through the medium 
of the fur-traders, a class of men held hi contempt 
by the Iroquois, and known among them by the sig- 
nificant title of " rum-carriers." 3 In short, through 
all the counsels of the province, Indian affairs were 
grossly and madly neglected. 4 

With more or less emphasis, the same remark holds 
true of all the other English colonies. 5 With those 
of France, it was far otherwise ; and this difference 
between the rival powers was naturally incident to 
their different forms of government, and different 
conditions of development. France labored with eager 
diligence to conciliate the Indians and win them to 



1 Smith, Hist. N. Y., passim. 

2 Rev. Military Operations, Mass. 
Hist. Coll. 1st Series, VII. 67. 

3 Colder), Hist. Five Nat. 161. 

4 MS. Papers of Cadwallader Col- 
den. MS. Papers of Sir William 
Johnson. 

" We find the Indians, as far back 
as the very confused manuscript rec- 
ords in my possession, repeatedly 
upbraiding 1 this province for their 
negligence, their avarice, and their 
want of assisting them at a time 
when it was certainly in their power 
to destroy the infant colony of Can- 
ada, although supported by many 
nations ; and this is likewise con- 
fessed by the writings of the man- 



agers of these times." — MS. Letter 
— Johnson to the Board of Trade. 
May 24, 1765. 

5 " I apprehend it will clearly ap- 
pear to you, that the colonies had 
all along neglected to cultivate a 
proper understanding with the In- 
dians, and from a mistaken notion 
have greatly despised them, without 
considering that it is in their power 
to lay 'w^asfe and destroy the fron- 
tiers. This opinion arose from our 
confidence in our scattered numbers, 
and the parsimony of'-Our people, 
who, from an error in politics, would 
not expend five pounds to save twen- 
ty." — MS. Letter — Johnson to the 
Board of Trade, November 13, 1763. 



Chap, in.] 



POLICY OF THE FRENCH. 



67 



espouse her cause. Her agents were busy in every 
village, studying the language of the inmates, com- 
plying with their usages, nattering their prejudices, 
caressing them, cajoling them, and whispering friendly 
warnings in their ears against the wicked designs of 
the English. When a party of Indian chiefs visited a 
French fort, they were greeted with the firing of cannon 
and rolling of drums ; they were regaled at the tables 
of the officers, and bribed with medals and decorations, 
scarlet uniforms and French flags. Far wiser than 
their rivals, the French never ruffled the self-complacent 
dignity of their guests, never insulted their religious 
notions, nor ridiculed their ancient customs. They met 
the savage half way, and showed an abundant readiness 
to mould their own features after his likeness. 1 Count 
Frontenac himself, plumed and painted like an Indian 
chief, danced the war-dance and yelled the war-song 
at the camp-fires of his delighted allies. It would 
have been well had the French been less exact in their 
imitations, for at times they copied their model with 
infamous fidelity, and fell into excesses scarcely credible 
but for the concurrent testimony of their own writers. 
Frontenac caused an Iroquois prisoner to be burnt 
alive to strike terror into his countrymen ; and Lou- 
vigny, French commandant at Michillimackinac, in 
1695, tortured an Iroquois ambassador to death, that 
he might break off a negotiation between that people 
and the "Wyandots. 2 Nor are these the only well- 
attested instances of such execrable inhumanity. But 



1 Adair, Post's Journals, Croghan's 
Journal, MSS. of Sir W. Johnson, 
etc., etc. 

2 La Hontan, I. 177. Potherie, 
Hist. Am. Sept. II. 298, (Paris, 1722.) 

These facts afford no ground for 
national reflections when it is re col 



lected that while Iroquois prisoners 
were tortured in the wilds of Can- 
ada, Elizabeth Gaunt was burned to 
death at Tyburn for yielding to the 
dictates of compassion, and giving 
shelter to a political offender. 



68 THE TRENCH, ENGLISH. AND INDIANS. [Chap. .HI. 

if the French were guilty of these cruelties against 
their Indian enemies, they were no less guilty of un- 
worthy compliance with the demands of their Indian 
friends, in cases where Christianity and civilization 
woidd have dictated a prompt refusal. Even the brave 
Montcalm stained his bright name by abandoning the 
hapless defenders of Oswego and William Henry to the 
tender mercies of an Indian mob. 

In general, however, the Indian policy of the French 
cannot be charged with obsequiousness. Complaisance 
was tempered with dignity. At an early period, they 
discerned the peculiarities of the native character, and 
clearly saw that, while, on the one hand, it was neces- 
sary to avoid giving offence, it was not less necessary, 
on the other, to assume a bold demeanor and a show 
of power ; to caress with one hand, and grasp a drawn 
sword with the other. 1 Every crime against a French- 
man was promptly chastised by the sharp agency of 
military law ; while among the English, the offender 
could only be reached through the medium of the civil 
courts, whose delays, uncertainties, and evasions excited 
the wonder and provoked the contempt of the Indians. 

It was by observance of the course indicated above 
— a course highly judicious in a political point of 
view, whatever it may have been to the eye of the mor- 
alist — that the French were enabled to maintain 
themselves in small detached posts, far aloof from the 
parent colony, and environed by barbarous tribes, where 
an English garrison would have been cut off in a 
twelvemonth. They professed to hold these posts, not 
in their own right, but purely through the grace and 
condescension of the surrounding savages ; and by this 



l Le Jeune. Rel. de la N. F. 1636, 193. 



Chap. HI.] AMALGAMATION OF FRENCH AND INDIANS. 



69 



conciliating assurance they sought to make good their 
position, until, with their growing strength, conciliation 
should no more be needed. 

In its efforts to win the friendship and alliance of 
the Indian tribes, the French government found every 
advantage hi the peculiar character of its subjects — - 
that pliant and plastic temper which forms so marked 
a contrast to the stubborn spirit of the Englishman. 
From the beginning, the French showed a tendency to 
amalgamate with the forest tribes. " The manners of the 
savages," writes the Baron La Hontan, " are perfectly 
agreeable to my palate ; " and many a restless adven- 
turer, of high or low degree, might have echoed the 
words of the erratic soldier. At first, great hopes were 
entertained that, by the mingling of French and In- 
dians, the latter would be won over to civilization and 
the church; but the effect was precisely the reverse; 
for, as Charlevoix observes, the savages did not become 
French, but the French became savages. Hundreds 
betook themselves to the forest, never more to return. 
These outno wings of French civilization were merged 
in the waste of barbarism, as a river is lost in the sands 
of the desert. The wandering Frenchman chose a wife 
or a concubine among his Indian friends ; and, in a 
few generations, scarcely a tribe of the west was free 
from an infusion of Celtic blood. The French empire 
in America could exhibit among its subjects every shade 
of color from white to red, every gradation of culture 
from the highest civilization of Paris to the rudest 
barbarism of the wigwam. 

The fur-trade engendered a peculiar class of men, 
known by the appropriate name of bush-rangers, or 
coureurs des bois, half-civilized vagrants, whose chief 
vocation was conducting the canoes of the traders 



70 



THE FRENCH. ENGLISH, AND INDIANS. [Chap. HI. 



along the lakes and rivers of the interior: many 
of them, however, shaking loose every tie of blood 
and kindred, identified themselves with the Indians, 
and sank into utter barbarism. In many a squalid 
camp among the plains and forests of the west, the 
traveller would have encountered men owning the 
blood and speaking the language of France, yet, in 
their wild and swarthy visages and barbarous costume, 
seeming more akin to those with whom they had 
cast their lot. The renegade of civilization caught 
the habits and imbibed the prejudices of his chosen 
associates. He loved to decorate his long hair with 
eagle feathers, to make his face hideous with vermil- 
ion, ochre, and soot, and to adorn his greasy hunting 
frock with horse-hair fringes. His dwelling, if he 
had one, was a wigwam. He lounged on a bear-skin 
while his squaw boiled his venison and lighted his 
pipe. In hunting, hi dancing, hi singing, in taking 
a scalp, he rivalled the genuine Indian. His mind 
w r as tinctured with the superstitions of the forest. 
He had faith hi the magic drum of the conjurer ; 
he was not sure that a thunder cloud could not be 
frightened away by w T histlhig at it through the wing 
bone of an eagle ; he carried the tail of a rattlesnake 
in his bullet pouch by way of amulet ; and he placed 
implicit trust hi the prophetic truth of his dreams. 
This class of men is not yet extinct. In the cheer- 
less wilds beyond the northern lakes, or among the 
mountain solitudes of the distant west, they may still 
be found, unchanged in life and character since the 
day when Louis the Great claimed sovereignty over 
this desert empire. 

The borders of the English colonies displayed no 
such phenomena of mingling races ; for here a thorny 



Chap. IH] 



ENGLISH FUR-TRADERS. 



71 



and impracticable barrier divided the white man from 
the red. The English fur- traders, and the rude men 
in their employ, showed, it is true, an ample alacrity 
to fling off the restraints of civilization ; but though 
they became barbarians, they did not become Indians ; 
and scorn on the one side, and hatred on the other, 
still marked the intercourse of the hostile races. 
With the settlers of the frontier it was much the 
same. Rude, fierce, and contemptuous, they daily 
encroached upon the hunting-grounds of the Indians, 
and then paid them for the injury with abuse and 
insult, curses and threats. Thus the native popula- 
tion shrank back from before the English, as from 
before an advancing pestilence ; while, on the other 
hand, in the very heart of Canada, Indian communi- 
ties sprang up, cherished by the government, and 
favored by the easy-tempered people. At Lorette, at 
Caughnawaga, at St. Francis, and elsewhere within 
the province, large bands were gathered together, con- 
sisting in part of fugitives from the borders of the 
hated English, and aiding, in time of war, to swell 
the forces of the French in repeated forays against 
the settlements of ~New York and New England. 

There was one of the English provinces marked 
out from among its brethren by the peculiar charac- 
ter of its founders, and by the course of conduct 
which was there pursued towards the Indian tribes. 
William Penn, his mind warmed with a broad philan- 
thropy, and enlightened by liberal views of human 
government and human rights, planted on the banks 
of the Delaware the colony which, vivified by the 
principles it embodied, grew, with a marvellous rapid- 
ity, into the great commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 
Penn's treatment of the Indians was equally prudent 



72 THE FREXCH. ENGLISH. AXD INDIANS. [Chap. HI. 

and humane, and its results were of high advantage to 
the colony ; but these results have been exaggerated, 
and the treatment which produced them made the 
theme of inordinate praise. It required no great be- 
nevolence to urge the Quakers to deal kindly with 
their savage neighbors. They were bound in common 
sense to propitiate them ; since, by incurring their re- 
sentment, they would involve themselves in the dilem- 
ma of submitting their necks to the tomahawk, or 
wielding the carnal weapon, in glaring defiance of 
their pacific principles, In paying the Indians for 
the lands which his colonists occupied, — a piece of 
justice which, has been greeted with a general clamor 
of applause, — Penn, as he himself confesses, acted on 
the prudent counsel of Compton, Bishop of London. 1 
Xor is there any truth in the representations of Hay- 
nal and other eulogists of the Quaker legislator, who 
hold him up to the world as the only European who 
ever acquired the Indian lands by purchase, instead 
of seizing them by fraud or violence. The example 
of purchase had been set fifty years before by the 
Puritans of New England; and several of the other 
colonies had more recently pursued the same just and 
prudent course. 2 

With regard to the alleged results of the pacific 
conduct of the Quakers, our admiration will diminish 
on closely viewing the circumstances of the case. 

1 "I have exactly followed the their tytle, that we may avoid the 
Bishop of London's counsel, by buy- least scruple of intrusion." — Instruc- 
ing, and not taking- away, the natives' Hons to Endicot, 1629. — See Hazard, 
land." — Penns Letter to the Ministry, State Papers, I. 203. 

Aug. 14, 1683.— See Chalmers, Polit. " The inhabitants of New England 

Ann. 666. had never, except in the territory of 

2 "If any of the salvages pretend the Pequods, taken possession of a 
right of inheritance to all or any part foot of land without first obtaining a 
of the lands granted in our patent, title from the Indians." — Bancroft, 
we pray you endeavor to purchase Hist: U. S. II. 98. 



Chap. III.] 



THE QUAKERS AND THE INDIANS. 



73 



The position of the colony was a most fortunate one. 
Had the Quakers planted their settlement on the 
banks of the St. Lawrence, or among the warlike 
tribes of New England, it may well be doubted whether 
their shaking of hands and assurances of tender regard 
would long have availed to save them from the visita- 
tions of the scalping-knife. But the Delawares, the 
people on whose territory their colony was planted, 
were, like themselves, debarred the use of arms. The 
Iroquois had conquered them, and reduced them to 
abject submission, wringing from them a yearly tribute, 
disarming them, forcing them to adopt the opprobrious 
name of women, and forego the right of war. The 
humbled Delawares were but too happy to receive 
the hand extended to them, and dwell in friendship 
with their pacific neighbors ; since to have lifted the 
hatchet would have brought upon their heads the 
vengeance of their conquerors, whose good will Penn 
had taken pains to secure. 1 

The sons of Penn, his successors in the proprietor- 
ship of the province, did not evince the same kindly 
feeling towards the Indians which had distinguished 
their father. Earnest to acquire new lands, they com- 
menced, through their agents, a series of unjust meas^ 
ures, which gradually alienated the attachment of the 
Indians, and, after a peace of seventy years, produced 
a most disastrous rupture. The Quaker population 
of the colony sympathized in the kindness which, its 
founder had cherished towards the benighted race. 
This feeling was strengthened by years of friendly 
intercourse; and except where private interest was 
concerned, the Quakers made good their reiterated 

1 He paid twice for his lands ; them by right of conquest, and once 
once to the Iroquois, who claimed to their occupants, the Delawares, . 



74 



THE FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND INDIANS. [Chap. III. 



professions of attachment. Kindness to the Indian 
was the glory of their sect. As years wore on, this 
feeling was wonderfully reenforced by the influence 
of party spirit. The time arrived when, alienated by 
English encroachment on the one hand and French 
seduction on the other, the Indians began to assmne 
a threatening attitude towards the province ; and 
many voices urged the necessity of a resort to arms. 
This measure, repugnant alike to their pacific princi- 
ples and to their love of the Indians, was strenuously 
opposed by the Quakers. Their affection for the in- 
jured race was now inflamed into a sort of benevo- 
lent fanaticism. The more rabid of the sect would 
scarcely confess that an Indian could ever do wrong. 
In their view, he was always sinned against, always 
the innocent victim of injury and abuse; and in the 
days of the final rupture, when the woods were full 
of furious war-parties, and the German and Irish 
settlers on the frontier were butchered by hundreds, 
when the western sky was darkened with the smoke 
of burning settlements, and the wretched fugitives were 
flying in crowds across the Susquehanna, a large party 
among the Quakers, secure by their Philadelphia fire- 
sides, could not see the necessity of waging even a 
defensive war against their favorite people. 1 

The encroachments on the part of the proprietors, 
which have been alluded to above, and which many 
of the Quakers viewed with disapproval, consisted in 

I 1755-1763. The feelings of the ernor Denny. See Proud, Hist. Pa., 
Quakers at this time may be gathered appendix. Haz., Pa. Reg. VIII. 273, 
from the following sources : MS. Ac- 293,323. But a much livelier pic- 
count of the Rise and Progress of ture of the prevailing excitement 
the Friendly Association for gaining will be found in a series of party 
and preserving Peace with the In- pamphlets, published at Philadelphia 
dians by pacific Measures. Address in the year 1764. 
of the Friendly Association to Gov- 



Chap. HI] THE WALKING PURCHASE. 75 

the fraudulent interpretation of Indian deeds of con- 
veyance, and in the granting out of lands without 
any conveyance at all. The most notorious of these 
transactions, and the one most lamentable in its re- 
sults, was commenced in the year 1737, and known 
by the name of the walking purchase. An old, for- 
gotten deed was raked out of the dust of the previous 
century, a deed which w T as in itself of doubtful va- 
lidity, and which, moreover, had been virtually can- 
celled by a subsequent agreement. On this rotten 
title the proprietors laid claim to a valuable tract of 
land on the right bank of the Delaware. Its western 
boundary was to be defined by a line drawn from a 
certain point on Neshaminey Creek, in a north-west- 
erly direction, as far as a man could walk in a day 
and a half. From the end of the walk, a line drawn 
eastward to the River Delaware w^as to form the north- 
ern limit of the purchase. The proprietors sought 
out the most active men who could be heard of, and 
put them in training for the walk ; at the same time 
laying out a smooth road along the intended course, 
that no obstructions might mar their speed. By this 
means an mcredible distance was accomplished within 
the limited time. And now it only remained to adjust 
the northern boundary. Instead of running the line 
directly to the Delaware, according to the evident 
meaning of the deed, the proprietors inclined it so 
far to the north as to form an acute angle with the 
river, and enclose many hundred thousand acres of 
valuable land, which would otherwise have remained 
in the hands of the Indians. 1 The land thus in- 

1 Causes of the Alienation of the written by Charles Thompson, after- 
Delaware and Shawanoe Indians from wards secretary of Congress, and de- 
the British Interest, 33, 68, (Lond. signed to explain the causes of the 
1759.) This work is a pamphlet, rupture which took place at the out- 



76 



THE FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND INDIANS. [Chap. m. 



famously obtained lay in the Forks of the Delaware, 
above Easton, and was then occupied by a powerful 
branch of the Delawares, who, to their unspeakable 
amazement, now heard the summons to quit forever 
their populous village and fields of half-grown maize. 
In rage and distress they refused to obey, and the 
proprietors were in a perplexing dilemma. Force was 
necessary; but a Quaker legislature would never con- 
sent to fight, and especially to fight against Indians. 
An expedient was hit upon, at once safe and effect- 
ual. The Iroquois were sent for. A deputation of 
their chiefs appeared at Philadelphia, and having been 
well bribed, and deceived by false accounts of the 
transaction, they consented to remove the refractory 
Delawares. The delinquents were summoned before 
their conquerors, and the Iroquois orator, Canassatego, 
a man of noble stature and imposing presence, 1 look- 
ing with a grim countenance on his cowering audi- 
tors, addressed them in the following words : — 

t; You ought to be taken by the hair of the head 
and shaken soundly till you recover your senses. You 
don't know what you are doing. Our brother Onas' 2 
cause is very just. On the other hand, your cause is 
bad, and you are bent to break the chain of friend- 
ship. How came you to take upon you to sell land 
at all ? We conquered you ; we made women of you ; 
you know you are women, and can no more sell land 

break of the French war. The text notes, though he cavils at several un- 

is supported by copious references to important points of the relation, he 

treaties and documents. I have seen suffers the essential matter to pass 

a copy in the possession of Francis unchallenged. 
Fisher, Esq., of Philadelphia, con- 1 Witham Marshe's Journal, 
taining marginal notes in the hand- 2 Onas was the name given by the 

writing of James Hamilton, who was Indians to William Penn and his 

twice governor of the province under successors, 
the proprietary instructions. In these 



Chap, in.] 



TYRA3TNT OF THE IROQUOIS. 



than women. This land you claim is gone down your 
throats; you have been furnished with clothes, meat, 
and drink, by the goods paid you for it, and now you 
want it again, like children as you are. What makes 
you sell land in the dark] Did you ever tell us you 
had sold this land'? Did we ever receive any part, 
even the value of a pipe-shank, from you for it % We 
charge you to remove instantly ; we don't give you 
the liberty to think about it. You are women. Take 
the advice of a wise man, and remove immediately. 
You may return to the other side of Delaware, where 
you came from; but we do not know whether, con- 
sidering how you have demeaned yourselves, you will 
be permitted to live there; or whether you have not 
swallowed that land down your throats as well as the 
land on this side. We therefore assign you two places 
to go, either to Wyoming or Shamokin. We shall 
then have you more under our eye, and shall see how 
you behave. Don't deliberate, but take this belt of 
wampum, and go at once." 1 

The unhappy Delawares dared not disobey this ar- 
bitrary mandate. They left their ancient homes, and 
removed, as they had been ordered, to the Susque- 
hanna, where some settled at Shamokin, and some at 
Wyoming. 2 From an early period, the Indians had 
been annoyed by the unlicensed intrusion of settlers 
upon their lands, and, in 1728, they had bitterly 
complained of the wrong. 3 The evil continued to in- 
crease. Many families, chiefly German and Irish, be- 
gan to cross the Susquehanna and build their cabins 
along the valleys of the Juniata and its tributary 
waters. The Delawares sent frequent remonstrances 



1 Minutes of Indian council held 
at Philadelphia, 1742. 



2 Chapman, Hist. Wyoming, 19. 

3 Colonial Records, III. 340. 



78 



THE FRENCH, ENGLISH. AND INDIANS. [Chap. HI. 



from their new abodes, and the Iroquois themselves 
made angry complaints, declaring that the lands of 
the Juniata were theirs by right of conquest, and that 
they had given them to their cousins, the Delaware*, 
for hunting-grounds. Some efforts at redress were 
made ; but the remedy proved ineffectual, and the dis- 
content of the Indians increased with every year. 
The Shawanoes, with many of the Delawares, removed 
westward, where, for a time, they would be safe from 
intrusion ; and by the middle of the century, the Del- 
aware tribe were separated into two divisions, one of 
which remained upon the Susquehanna, while the 
other, in conjunction with the Shawanoes, dwelt on 
the waters of the Alleghany and the Muskingum. 

But now the French began to push their advanced 
posts into the valley of the Ohio. Most unhappily 
for the English interest, they found the irritated minds 
of the Indians in a state which favored their efforts 
at seduction, and held forth a flattering promise that 
tribes so long faithful to the English might soon be 
won over to espouse the cause of France. 

While the English interests wore so inauspicious 
an aspect in this quarter, their prospects were not 
much better among the Iroquois. Since the peace 
of Utrecht, in 1713, these powerful tribes had so far 
forgotten their old malevolence against the French, 
that the latter were enabled to bring all their ma- 
chinery of conciliation to bear upon them. They 
tumed the opportunity to such good account as not 
only to smooth away the asperity of their ancient foes, 
but also to rouse in their minds a growing jealousy 
against the English. Several accidental circumstance* 
did much to aggravate this feeling. The Iroquois 
were in the habit of sending out frequent war- 



Chap. III.] 



FATHER PICQUET. 



79 



parties against their enemies, the Cherokees and Cataw- 
bas, who dwelt near the borders of Carolina and Vir- 
ginia ; and in these forays the invaders often became so 
seriously embroiled with the white settlers, that sharp 
frays took place, and an open war seemed likely to 
ensue. 1 

It was with great difficulty that the irritation of 
these untoward accidents was allayed ; and even then 
enough still remained in the neglect of governments, 
the insults of traders, and the haughty bearing of offi- 
cials, to disgust the proud confederates with their 
English allies. In the war of 1745, they yielded but 
cold and doubtful aid ; and fears were entertained of 
their final estrangement. 2 This result became still 
more imminent, when, in the year 1749, the French 
priest Picquet established his mission of La Presenta- 
tion on the St. Lawrence, at the site of Ogdensburg. 3 
This pious father, like the martial churchmen of an 
earlier day, deemed it no scandal to gird on earthly 
armor against the enemies of the faith. He built a 
fort and founded a settlement ; he mustered the Indians 
about him from far and near, organized their govern- 
ments, and marshalled their war-parties. From the 
crenelled walls of his mission-house the warlike apostle 
could look forth upon a military colony of his own 
creating, upon farms and clearings, white Canadian 
cabins, and the bark lodges of many an Indian horde 
which he had gathered under his protecting wing. A 
chief object of the settlement was to form a barrier 
against the English ; but the purpose dearest to the 
missionary's heart was to gain over the Iroquois to 

1 Letter of Governor Spots wood, 2 Minutes of Indian Council, 1746. 
of Virginia, Jan. 25, 1720. See Col- 3 Doc. Hist. N. Y. I. 423. 
onial Records of Pa. III. 75. 



SO 



THE FRENCH, ENGLISH. AND INDIANS. [Chap. III. 



the side of France ; and in this he succeeded so well, 
that, as a writer of good authority declares, the num- 
ber of their warriors within the circle of his influence 
siupassed the whole remaining force of the con- 
federacy. 1 

Thoughtful men in the English colonies saw with 
anxiety the growing defection of the Iroquois, and 
dreaded lest, in the event of a war with France, her 
ancient foes might now he found her friends. But in 
this ominous conjuncture, one strong influence was at 
work to bind the confederates to their old alliance; 
and this influence was wielded by a man so remarkable 
in his character, and so conspicuous an actor hi the 
scenes of the ensiling history, as to demand at least 
some passing notice. 

About the year 1734:, in consequence, it is said, of 
the hapless issue of a love affair, William Johnson, a 
young Irishman, came over to America at the age of 
nineteen, where he assumed the charge of an extensive 
tract of wild land in the province of Xew York, be- 
longing to his uncle, Admiral Sir Peter Warren. 
Settling hi the valley of the Mohawk, he carried on 
a prosperous traffic with the Indians; and while he 
rapidly rose to wealth, he gained, at the same time, an 
extraordinary influence over the neighboring Iroquois. 
As his resources increased, he built two mansions 
in the valley, known respectively by the names of 
Johnson Castle and Johnson Hall, the latter of which, 
a well-constructed building of wood and stone, is still 
standing in the village of Johnstown. Johnson Castle 
was situated at some distance higher up the river. 
Both were fortified against attack, and the latter was 

1 MS. Letter — Colden to Lord Halifax, no date. 



Chap. HI.] 



SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 



81 



surrounded with cabins built for the reception of the 
Indians, who often came in crowds to visit the propri- 
etor, invading his dwelling at all unseasonable hours, 
loitering in the doorways, spreading their blankets in 
the passages, and infecting the air with the fumes of 
stale tobacco. 

Johnson supplied the place of his former love by 
a young Dutch damsel, who bore him several children ; 
and, hi justice to the latter, he married her upon her 
death-bed. Soon afterwards he found another favorite 
in the person of Molly Brant, sister of the celebrated 
Mohawk war-chief, whose black eyes and laughing 
face caught his fancy, as, fluttering with ribbons, she 
galloped past him at a muster of the Tryon county 
militia. 

Johnson's importance became so conspicuous, that 
when the French war broke out in 1755, he was made 
a major-general ; and soon after, the colonial troops 
under his command gained the battle of Lake George 
against the French forces of Baron Dieskau. For this 
success, for which, however, the commander was entitled 
to little credit, he was raised to the rank of baronet, 
and rewarded with the gift of five thousand pounds 
from the king. About this time, he was appointed 
superintendent of Indian affairs for the northern tribes, 
a station in which he did signal service to the country. 
In 1759, when General Prideaux was killed by the 
bursting of a cohorn in the trenches before Niagara, 
Johnson succeeded to his command, routed the French 
in another pitched battle, and soon raised the red cross 
of England on the conquered rampart of the fort. 
After the peace of 1763, he lived for many years at 
Johnson Hall, constantly enriched by the increasing 
value of his vast estate, and surrounded by a hardy 
11 



82 



THE FRENCH, ENGLISH AND INDIANS. [Chap. HI. 



Highland tenantry, devoted to his interests ; but when 
the tempest which had long been brewing seemed at 
length about to break, and signs of a speedy rupture 
with the mother country thickened with every day, he 
stood wavering in an agony of indecision, divided 
between his loyalty to the sovereign who was the source 
of all his honors, and his reluctance to become the 
ao-ent of a murderous Indian warfare against his 
coimtrymen and friends. His final resolution was 
never taken. In the summer of 1774, he was attacked 
with a sudden illness, and died within a few hours, in 
the sixtieth year of his age, hurried to his grave by 
mental distress, or, as many believed, by the act of his 
own hand. 

Xature had well fitted him for the position in which 
his propitious stars had cast his lot. His person was 
tall, erect, and strong; his features grave and manly. 
His direct and upright dealings, his courage, elo- 
quence, and address were sure passports to favor in 
Indian eyes. He had a singular facility of adaptation. 
In the camp, or at the council-board, in spite of his 
defective education, he bore himself as became his 
station; but at home he was seen drinking flip and 
smoking tobacco with the Dutch boors, his neighbors, 
talking of improvements or the price of beaver-skins ; 
and in the Indian villages he would feast on dog's flesh, 
dance with the warriors, and harangue his attentive 
auditors with all the dignity of an Iroquois sachem. 
His temper was genial ; he encouraged rustic sports, 
and was respected and beloved alike by whites and 
Indians. 

His good qualities, however, were alloyed with seri- 
ous defects. His mind was as coarse as it was vigor- 
ous ; he was vain of his rank and influence, and being 



Chap. III.] 



POSITION OF PARTIES. 



83 



quite free from any scruple of delicacy, he lost no 
opportunity of proclaiming them. His nature was 
eager and ambitious ; and in pushing his own way, he 
was never distinguished by an anxious solicitude for 
the rights of others. 1 

At the time of which we speak, his fortunes had not 
reached their zenith ; yet his influence was great, and 
during the war of 1745, when he held the chief control 
of Indian affairs in New York, it was exercised in a 
manner most beneficial to the province. After the 
peace of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, finding his measures 
ill supported, he threw up his office in disgust. Still 
his mere personal influence sufficed to embarrass the 
intrigues of the busy priest at La Presentation ; and a 
few years later, when the public exigency demanded 
his utmost efforts, he resumed, under better auspices, 
the official management of Indian affairs. 

And now, when the blindest could see that between 
the rival claimants to the soil of America nothing 
was left but the arbitration of the sword, no man 
friendly to the cause of England could observe without 
alarm how France had strengthened herself in Indian 
alliances. The Iroquois, it is true, had not quite gone 
over to her side, nor had the Delawares yet forgotten 
their ancient league with William Penn. The Miamis 
in the valley of the Ohio had even taken umbrage at 
the conduct of the French, and betrayed a leaning to 
the side of England, while several tribes of the south 
showed a similar disposition. But, with few and slight 
exceptions, the numerous tribes of the Great Lakes and 

1 Allen, Am. Biog. Diet, and au- Papers relating to Sir W. Johnson, 

thorities there referred to. Camp- See Doc. Hist. N. Y. II. MS. Papers 

bell, Annals of Tryon County, ap- of Sir W. Johnson, etc., etc. 
pendix. Sabine, Am. Loyalists, 398. 



84 THE FRENCH, ENGLISH, AND INDIANS. [Chap. HI. 



the Mississippi, besides a host of domiciliated savages 
in Canada itself, stood ready at the bidding of France 
to grind their tomahawks and turn loose their ravenous 
war-parties ; while the British colonists had too much 
reason to fear that even those tribes who seemed most 
friendly to their cause, and who formed the sole bar- 
rier of their unprotected borders, might, at the first 
sound of the war-whoop, be found in arms against 
them. 



CHAP TEE IV. 

COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. 

The people of the northern English colonies had 
learned to regard their Canadian neighbors with the 
bitterest enmity. With them, the very name of Canada 
called up horrible recollections and ghastly images • 
the midnight massacre of Schenectady, and the deso- 
lation of many a New England hamlet ; blazing dwell- 
ings and reeking scalps ; and children snatched from 
their mothers' arms, to be immured in convents and 
trained up in the heresies of Popery. To the sons 
of the Puritans, their enemy was doubly odious. They 
hated him as a Frenchman, and they hated him as a 
Papist. Hitherto he had waged his murderous war- 
fare from a distance, wasting their settlements with 
rapid onsets, fierce and transient as a summer storm ; 
but now, with enterprising audacity, he was hitjenching 
himself on their very borders. The English hunter, 
in the lonely wilderness of Vermont, as by the warm 
glow of sunset he piled the spruce boughs for his 
woodland bed, started as a deep, low sound struck 
faintly on his ear, the evening gun of Fort Frederic, 
booming over lake and forest. The erection of this 
fort, better known among the English as Crown Point, 
was a piece of daring encroachment which justly 
kindled resentment in the northern colonies. But it 
was not here that the immediate occasion of a final 

H 



86 COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 

I 

rupture was to arise. By an article of the treaty of 
Utrecht, confirmed by that of Aix la Chapelle, Aca- 
dia had been ceded to England ; but scarcely was the 
latter treaty signed, when debates sprang up touch- 
ing the limits of the ceded province. Commissioners 
were named on either side to adjust the disputed 
boundary; but the claims of the rival powers proved 
utterly irreconcilable, and all negotiation was fruitless. 1 
Meantime, the French and English forces in Acadia 
began to assume a belligerent attitude, and indulge 
their ill blood in mutual aggression and reprisal. 2 
But while this game was played on the coasts of the 
Atlantic, interests of far greater moment were at stake 
in the west. 

The people of the middle colonies, placed by their 
local position beyond reach of the French, had 
heard with, great composure of the sufferings of their 
New England brethren, and felt little concern at a 
danger so doubtful and remote. There were those 
among them, however, who, with greater foresight, had 
been quick to perceive the ambitious projects of the 
French; and, as early as 1716, Spotswood, governor 
of Virginia, had urged the expediency of securing 
the valley of the Ohio by a series of forts and set- 
tlements. 3 His proposal was coldly listened to, and 
his plan fell to the ground. The time at length was 
come when the danger was approaching too near to 
be slighted longer. In 1748, an association, called 
the Ohio Company, was formed, with the view of 
making settlements in the region beyond the Alle- 

1 Garneau, Book VIII. Chap. III. 3 Smollett, III. 370, (Edinburgh, 

2 Holmes, Annals, EL 183. Me- 1805.) 
moire contenant Le Precis ties Faits, 
Pieces Justificatives, Part I. 



Chap. IV.] 



MISSION OF WASHINGTON. 



87 



ghanies; and two years later, Gist, the company's sur- 
veyor, to the great disgust of the Indians, carried 
chain and compass down the Ohio as far as the falls 
at Louisville. 1 But so dilatory were the English, that 
before any effectual steps were taken, their agile ene- 
mies appeared upon the scene. i 

In the spring of 1753, the middle provinces were 
startled at the tidings that French troops had crossed 
Lake Erie, fortified themselves at the point of Presqu'- 
Isle, and pushed forward to the northern branches 
of the Ohio. 2 Upon this, Governor Dinwiddie, of 
Virginia, resolved to despatch a message requiring 
their removal from territories which he claimed as 
belonging to the British crown; and looking about 
him for the person best qualified to act as messenger, 
he made choice of George Washington, a young man 
twenty-one years of age, adjutant general of the Vir- 
ginian militia. 

Washington departed on his mission, crossed the 
mountains, descended to the bleak and leafless valley 
of the Ohio, and thence continued his journey up the 
banks of the Alleghany until the fourth of Decem- 
ber. On that day he reached Venango, an Indian 
town on the Alleghany, at the mouth of French Creek. 
Here was the advanced post of the French, and here, 
among the Indian log-cabins and huts of bark, he saw 
their flag flying above the house of an English trader, 
whom the military intruders had unceremoniously 
ejected. They gave the young envoy a hospitable re- 
ception, 3 and referred him to the commanding officer, 

1 Sparks, Life and Writings of tains documents relating to this period 
Washington, II. 478. Gist's Journal, which are not to be found elsewhere. 
1750. 3 « He invited us to sup with them, 

2 Olden Time, II. 9, 10. This ex- and treated us with the greatest com- 
cellent antiquarian publication con- plaisance. The wine, as they dosed 



88 COLLISION OF THE KIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 

whose head-quarters were at Le Bceuf, a fort which 
they had just erected on French Creek, some distance 
above Venango. Thither Washington repaired, and 
on his arrival was received with stately courtesy by 
the officer Legardeur de St. Pierre, whom he describes 
as an elderly gentleman of very soldier-like appear- 
ance. To the message of Dinwiddle, St. Pierre replied 
that he would forward it to the governor general of 
Canada; but that, in the mean time, his orders were 
to hold possession of the country, and this he should 
do to the best of his ability. With this answer Wash- 
ington, through all the rigors of the midwinter forest, 
retraced his steps, with one attendant, to the English 
borders. 

With the first opening of spring, a newly-raised 
company of Virginian backwoodsmen, under Captain 
Trent, hastened across the mountains, and began to 
build a fort at the confluence of the Monon^ahela 
and Alleghany, where Pittsburg now stands; when 
suddenly they found themselves invested by a host 
of French and Indians, who, with sixty bateaux 
and three hundred canoes, had descended from Le 
Bceuf and Venango. 1 The English were ordered to 
evacuate the spot ; and, being quite unable to resist, 
they obeyed the summons, and withdrew in great dis- 
comfiture towards Virginia. Meanwhile Washington, 

themselves pretty plentifully with it, prevent any undertaking of theirs, 
soon banished the restraint which at They pretend to have an undoubted 
first appeared in their conversation, right to the river from a discovery 
and gave a license to their tongues made by one La Salle, sixty years 
to reveal their sentiments more freely, ago ; and the rise of this expedition 
They told me, that it was their abso- is, to prevent our settling on the river 
lute design to take possession of the or waters of it, as they heard of some 
Ohio, and by G — d they would do it; families moving out in order there- 
for that, although they were sensible to." — Washington, Journal. 
the English could raise two men for 1 Sparks, Life and Writings of 
their one, yet they knew their mo- Washington, II. 6. 
tioii3 were too slow and dilatory to 



Chap. IV.] 



DEATH OF JUMONVILLE. 



89 



with another party of backwoodsmen, was advancing 
from the borders ; and hearing of Trent's disaster, he 
resolved to fortify himself on the Monongahela, and 
hold his ground, if possible, until fresh troops could 
arrive to support him. The French sent out a scout- 
ing party under M. Jumonville, with the design, prob- 
ably, of watching his movements ; but, on a dark and 
stormy night, Washington surprised them, as they lay 
lurking in a rocky glen not far from his camp, killed 
the officer, and captured the whole detachment. 1 Learn- 
ing that the French, enraged by this reverse, were about 
to attack him in great force, he thought it prudent to 
fall back, and retired accordingly to a spot called the 
Great Meadows, where he had before thrown up a 
slight intrenchment. Here he found himself furiously 
assailed by nine hundred French and Indians, com- 
manded by a brother of the slain Jumonville. From 
eleven in the morning till eight at night, the back- 
woodsmen, who were half famished from the failure 
of their stores, maintained a stubborn defence, some 
fighting within the intrenchment, and some on the 
plain without. In the evening, the French sounded a 
parley, and offered terms. They were accepted, and on 
the following day Washington and his men retired 
across the mountains, and the disputed territory re- 
mained in the hands of the French. 2 

While the rival nations were beginning to quarrel 
for a prize which belonged to neither of them, the 
unhappy Indians saw, with alarm and amazement, their 



1 Sparks, II. 447. The conduct 
of Washington in this affair has been 
misrepresented, but the passage re- 
ferred to contains a full justification. 

2 For the French account of these 
operations, see Memoire contenant 

12 



Le Precis des Faits. This volume, 
an official publication of the French 
court, contains numerous documents, 
among which are the papers of the 
unfortunate Braddock, left on the 
field of battle by his defeated army. 



90 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



lands becoming a bone of contention between rapacious 
strangers. The first appearance of the French on the 
Ohio excited the wildest fears in the tribes of that 
quarter, among whom were those who, disgusted by 
the encroachments of the Pennsylvanians, had fled to 
these remote retreats to escape the intrusions of the 
white men. Scarcely was their fancied asylum gamed, 
when they saw themselves invaded by a host of armed 
men from Canada. Thus placed between two fires, 
they knew not which way to turn. There was no 
union hi their counsels, and they seemed like a mob 
of bewildered children. Their native jealousy was 
roused to its utmost pitch. Many of them thought 
that the two white nations had conspired to destroy 
them, and then divide their lands. " You and the 
French," said one of them, a few years afterwards, to 
an English emissary, " are like the two edges of a pair 
of shears, and we are the cloth which is cut to pieces 
between them." 1 

The French labored hard to conciliate them, plying 
them with gifts and flatteries, 2 and proclaiming them- 
selves their champions against the English. At first, 
these arts seemed in vain, but their effect soon began 
to declare itself; and this effect was greatly increased 
by a singular piece of infatuation on the part of the 
proprietors of Pennsylvania. During the summer of 



1 First Journal of C. F. Post. 

2 Letters of Robert Stobo, an Eng- 
lish hostage at Fort du Quesne. 

" Sharnokin Daniel, who came 
with me, went over to the fort 
[du Quesne] by himself, and coun- 
selled with the governor, who pre- 
sented him with a laced coat and 
hat, a blanket, shirts, ribbons, a new 
gun, powder, lead, &c. When he 
returned, he was quite changed, and 



said, ' See here, you fools, what the 
French have given me. I was in 
Philadelphia, and never received a 
farthing;' and (directing himself to 
me) said, 4 The English are fools, and 
so are you.' " — Post, First Journal. 

Washington, while at Fort Le 
Bceuf, was much annoyed by the 
conduct of the French, who did 
their utmost to seduce his Indian 
escort by bribes and promises'. 



Chap. IV.J FRENCH AND ENGLISH DIPLOMACY. 



91 



1754, delegates of the several provinces met at Albany, 
in order to concert measures of defence in the war 
which now seemed inevitable. It was at this meeting 
that the memorable plan of a union of the colonies 
was brought upon the carpet; a plan, the fate of 
which was curious and significant, for the crown 
rejected it as giving too much power to the people, 
and the people as giving too much power to the 
crown. 1 A council was also held with the Iroquois, 
and though they were found but lukewarm in their 
attachment to the English, a treaty of friendship and 
alliance was concluded with their deputies. 2 It would 
have been well if the matter had ended here; but, 
with ill-thned rapacity, the proprietary agents of Penn- 
sylvania took advantage of this great assemblage of 
sachems to procure from them the grant of extensive 
tracts, including the lands inhabited by the very tribes 
whom the French were at that moment striving to 
seduce. 3 When they heard that, without their consent, 
their conquerors and tyrants, the Iroquois, had sold the 
soil from beneath their feet, their indignation was 
extreme ; and, convinced that there was no limit to 
English encroachment, many of them from that hour 
became fast allies of the French. 

The courts of London and Versailles still maintained 
a diplomatic intercourse, both protesting their earnest 
wish that their conflicting claims might be adjusted 
by friendly negotiation ; but while each disclaimed the 



1 Trumbull, Hist. Conn. II. 355. 
Holmes, Annals, II. 201. 

2 At this council an Iroquois sa- 
chem upbraided the English, with 
great boldness, for their neglect of 
the Indians, their invasion of their 
lands; and their dilatory conduct with 



regard to the French, who, as the 
speaker averred, had behaved like 
men and warriors. — Minutes of Con- 
ferences at Albany, 1754. 

3 Causes of the Alienation of 
the Delaware and Shawanoe Indians 
from the British Interest, 77. 



92 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



intention of hostility, both were hastening to prepare 
for war. Early in 1755, an English fleet sailed from 
Cork, having on board two regiments destined for 
Virginia, and commanded by General Braddock; and 
soon after, a French fleet pnt to sea from the port of 
Brest, freighted with munitions of war and a strong 
body of troops under Baron Dieskau, an officer who 
had distinguished himself in the campaigns of Marshal 
Saxe. The English fleet gained its destination, and 
landed its troops in safety. The French were less for- 
tunate. Two of their ships, the Lys and the Alcide, 
became involved in the fogs of the banks of New- 
foundland ; and when the weather cleared, they found 
themselves under the guns of a superior British force, 
belonging to the squadron of Admiral Boscawen, sent 
out for the express purpose of intercepting them. 
" Are we at peace or war 1 " demanded the French 
commander. A broadside from the Englishman soon 
solved his doubts, and, after a stout resistance, the 
French struck their colors. 1 News of the capture 
caused great excitement in England, but the conduct 
of the aggressors was generally approved of; and 
under pretence that the French had begun the war by 
their alleged encroachments in America, orders were 
issued for a general attack upon their marine. So 
successful were the British cruisers, that, before the 
end of the year, three hundred French vessels, and 
nearly eight thousand sailors, were captured and 
brought into port. 2 The French, unable to retort in 



1 Garneau, II. 551. Gent. Mag. 
XXV. 330. 

2 Smollett, III. 436. 

" The French inveighed against 
the capture of their ships, before 
any declaration of war, as flagrant 



acts of piracy ; and some neu- 
tral powers of Europe seemed to 
consider them in the same point of 
view. It was certainly high time to 
check the insolence of the French 
by force of arms ; and surely this 



Chap. IV.] THE WAR Eff EUEOPE AND AMERICA. 



93 



kind, raised an outcry of indignation, and Mirepoix, 
their ambassador, withdrew from the court of London. 

Thus began that memorable war which, kindling 
among the wild forests of America, scattered its fires 
oyer the kingdoms of Europe, and the sultry empire 
of the Great Mogul; the war made glorious by the 
heroic death of Wolfe, the victories of Frederic, and 
the marvellous exploits of Clive ; the war which con- 
trolled the destinies of America, and was first in the 
chain of events which led on to her revolution, with 
all its vast and undeveloped consequences. On the 
old battle-ground of Europe, the struggle bore the 
same familiar features of violence and horror which 
had marked the strife of former generations — fields 
ploughed by the cannon bail, and walls shattered by 
the exploding mine, sacked towns and blazing sub- 
urbs, the lamentations of women, and the license of 
a maddened soldiery. But in America, war assumed 
a new and striking aspect. A wilderness was its sub- 
lime arena. Army met army under the shadows of 
primeval woods ; their cannon resounded over wastes 
unknown to civilized man. And before the hostile 
powers could join in battle, endless forests must be 
traversed, and morasses passed, and every where the 
axe of the pioneer must hew a path for the bayonet 
of the soldier. 

Before the declaration of war, and before the break- 
ing off of negotiations between the courts of France 
and England, the English ministry formed the plan 
of assailing the French in America on all sides at 

might have been as effectually and neighbors, and fixed the imputation 

expeditiously exerted under the usual of fraud and freebooting on the be- 

sanction of a formal declaration, the ginning of the war." — Smollett, III. 

omission of which exposed the ad- 481. See also Mahon, Hist. Eng- 

ministration to the censure of our land, IV. 72. 



94 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



once, and repelling them, by one bold push, from all 
their encroachments. 1 A provincial army was to ad- 
vance upon Acadia, a second was to attack Crown 
Point, and a third Niagara ; while the two regiments 
which had lately arrived in Virginia under General 
Braddock, aided by a strong body of provincials, were 
to dislodge the French from their newly-built fort of 
Du Quesne. To Braddock was assigned the chief 
command of all the British forces in America ; and a 
person worse fitted for the office could scarcely have 
been found. His experience had been ample, and none 
could doubt his courage ; but he was profligate, arro- 
gant, perverse, and a bigot to military rules. 2 On his 
first arrival in Virginia, he called together the gov- 
ernors of the several provinces, in order to explain his 
instructions and adjust the details of the projected 
operations. These arrangements complete, Braddock 
advanced to the borders of Virginia, and formed his 
camp at Fort Cumberland, where he spent several 



1 Instructions of General Brad- 
dock. See Precis des Faits, 160, 
168. 

2 The following is Horace Wal- 
pole's testimony, and writers of bet- 
ter authority have expressed them- 
selves, with less liveliness and 
piquancy, to the same effect : — 

" Braddock is a very Iroquois in dis- 
position. He had a sister, who, hav- 
ing- gamed away all her little fortune 
at Bath, hanged herself with a truly 
English deliberation, leaving only a 
note upon the table with those lines, 
'To die is landing on some silent 
shore,' &c. When Braddock was 
told of it, he only said, ' Poor Fanny ! 
I always thought she would play till 
she would be forced to tuck herself 
up: " 

Here follows a curious anecdote 
of Braddock's meanness and profli- 
gacy, which I omit. The next is 



more to his credit. " He once had 
a duel with Colonel Gumley, Lady 
Bath's brother, who had been his 
great friend. As they were going to 
engage, Gumley, who had good hu- 
mor and wit, (Braddock had the lat- 
ter,) said, ' Braddock, you are a poor 
dog ! Here, take my purse. If you 
kill me, you will be forced to run 
away, and then you will not have a 
shilling to support you.' Braddock 
refused the purse, insisted on the 
duel, was disarmed, and would not 
even ask his life. However, with all 
his brutality, he has lately been gov- 
ernor of Gibraltar, where he made 
himself adored, and where scarce 
any governor was endured before." 
— Letters to Sir H. Mann, CCLXV. 
CCLXVI. 

Washington's opinion of Brad- 
dock may be gathered from his 
Writings, II. 77. 



Chap. IV.] 



MAKCH OF SHADDOCK 



95 



weeks in training the raw backwoodsmen, who joined 
him, into such discipline as they seemed capable of; 
in collecting horses and wagons, which could only be 
had with the utmost difficulty ; in railing at the con- 
tractors, who scandalously cheated him; and in vent- 
ing his spleen by copious abuse of the country and 
the people. All at length was ready, and early in 
June, 1755, the army left civilization behind, and 
struck into the broad wilderness as a squadron puts 
out to sea. 

It was no easy task to force their way over that 
rugged ground, covered with an unbroken growth of 
forest; and the difficulty was increased by the need- 
less load of baggage which encumbered their march. 
The crash of falling trees resounded in the front, 
where a hundred axemen labored, with ceaseless toil, 
to hew a passage for the army. 1 The horses strained 
their utmost strength to drag the ponderous wagons 
over roots and stumps, through gullies and quagmires ; 
and the regular troops were daunted by the depth 
and gloom of the forest which hedged them in on 
either hand, and closed its leafy arches above their 
heads. So tedious was their progress, that, by the 
advice of Washington, twelve hundred chosen men 
moved on in advance with the lighter baggage and 
artillery, leaving the rest of the army to follow, by 
slower stages, with the heavy wagons. On the eighth 
of July, the advanced body reached the Monongahela, 
at a point not far distant from Fort du Quesne. 
The rocky and impracticable ground on the eastern 
side debarred their passage, and the general resolved 
to cross the river in search of a smoother path, and 

1 MS. Diary of the Expedition, in the British Museum. 



96 



COLLISION Or THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



recross it a few miles lower clown, in order to gain 
the fort. The first passage was easily made, and the 
troops moved, in glittering array, down the western 
margin of the water, rejoicing that their goal was 
well nigh reached, and the hour of their expected 
triumph close at hand. 

Scouts and Indian runners had brought the tidings 
of Bradciock's approach to the French at Fort ciu 
Quesne. Their dismay was great, and Contrecceur, the 
commander, thought only of retreat; when Beaujeu, a 
captain in the garrison, made the bold proposal of 
leading out a party of French and Indians to waylay 
the English in the woods, and harass or interrupt 
their march. The offer was accepted, and Beaujeu 
hastened to the Indian camps. 

Around the fort and beneath the adjacent forest 
were the bark lodges of savage hordes, whom the 
French had mustered from far and near; Ojibwas and 
Ottawas, Hurons and Caughnawagas, Abenakis and 
Delawares. Beaujeu called the warriors together, 
flung a hatchet on the ground before them, and in- 
vited them to follow him out to battle ; but the 
boldest stood aghast at the peril, and none would ac- 
cept the challenge. A second interview took place 
with no better success ; but the Frenchman was re- 
solved to carry his point. " I am determined to go," 
he exclaimed. " What, will you suffer your father to 
go alone 1 " 1 His daring spirit proved contagious. 
The warriors hesitated no longer; and when, on the 
morning of the ninth of July, a scout ran in with 

1 Sparks, Life and Writings of scripts, which throw much light on 

Washington, II. 473. I am indebted the incidents of the battle. These 

to the kindness of President Sparks manuscripts are alluded to in the 

for copies of several French manu- Life and Writings of Washington. 



Chap. IV.J 



THE AMBUSCADE, 



97 



the news that the English army was but a few miles 
distant, the Indian camps were at once astir with the 
turmoil of preparation. Chiefs harangued their yell- 
ing followers, braves bedaubed themselves with war- 
paint, smeared themselves with grease, hung feathers 
in their scalp-locks, and whooped and stamped till 
they had wrought themselves into a delirium of 
valor. 

That morning, James Smith, an English prisoner 
recently captured on the frontier of Pennsylvania, 
stood on the rampart, and saw the half-frenzied mul- 
titude thronging about the gateway, where kegs of 
bullets and gunpowder were broken open, that each 
might help himself at will. ] Then band after band 
hastened away towards the forest, followed and sup- 
ported by nearly two hundred and fifty French and 
Canadians, commanded by Beaujeu. There were the 
Ottawas, led on, it is said, by the remarkable man 
whose name stands on the title-page of this history; 
there were the Hurons of Lorette under their chief, 
whom the French called Athanase, 2 and many more, 
all keen as hounds on the scent of blood. At about 
nine miles from the fort, they reached a spot where 
the narrow road descended to the river through deep 
and gloomy woods, and where two ravines, concealed 
by trees and bushes, seemed formed by nature for an 
ambuscade. Here the warriors ensconced themselves, 
and, levelling their guns over the edge, lay in fierce 

1 Smith's Narrative. This interest- dance. Got well acquainted with 
ing account has been several times Athanase, who was commander of the 
published. It may be found in Drake's Indians who defeated General Brad- 
Tragedies of the Wilderness, dock, in 1755 — a very sensible fel- 

2 " Went to Lorette, an Indian vil- low." — MS. Journal of an English 
lage about eight miles from Quebec. Gentleman on a Tour through Canada, 
Saw the Indians at mass, and heard in 1765. 

them sing psalms tolerably well — a 

13 i 



98 



COLLISION OF THE EIVAL COLONIES. 



[Chap. IV. 



expectation, listening to the advancing drums of the 
English army. 

It was past noon of a day brightened with the clear 
sunlight of an American midsummer, when the forces 
of Braddock began, for a second time, to cross the 
Monongahela, at the fording-place, which to this day 
bears the name of their ill-fated leader. The scarlet 
columns of the British regulars complete in martial 
appointment, the rude backwoodsmen with shouldered 
rifles, the trains of artillery and the white-topped 
wagons, moved on in long procession through the 
broad and shallow current, and slowly mounted the 
opposing bank. 1 Men were there whose names have 
become historic; Gage, who, twenty years later, saw 
his routed battalions recoil in disorder from before 
the breastwork on Bunker Hill ; Gates, the future 
conqueror of Burgoyne ; and one destined to far loftier 
fame, George "Washington, a boy in years, a man in 
calm thought and self-ruling wisdom. 

With steady and well-ordered march, the troops 
advanced into the great labyrinth of woods which 
shadowed the eastern borders of the river. Rank 
after rank vanished from sight. The forest swallowed 
them up, and the silence of the wilderness sank down 
once more on the shores and waters of the Monon- 
gahela. 

Several guides and six light horsemen led the way; 
a body of grenadiers was close behind, and the army 

1 " My feeling's were heightened order of the men, the cleanliness of 
by the warm and glowing narration their appearance, the joy depicted on 
of that day's events, by Dr. Walker, every face at being so near Fort du 
who was an eye-witness. He pointed Quesne — the highest object of their 
out the ford where the army crossed wishes. The music reechoed through 
the Monongahela, (below Turtle the hills. How brilliant the morn- 
Creek, 800 yards.) A finer sight could ing — how melancholy the evening ! " 
not have been beheld — the shining — Letter of Judge Yeates, dated August^ 
barrels of the muskets, the excellent 1776. See Haz., Pa. Reg. VI. 104. 



Chap. IV.] 



BR ADD OCR'S DEFEAT. 



99 



followed in such order as the rough ground would 
permit. 1 Their road was tunnelled through the forest ; 
yet, deaf alike to the voice of common sense and to 
the counsel of his officers, Braddock had neglected to 
throw out scouts in advance, and pressed forward 
in blind security to meet his fate. Leaving behind 
the low grounds which bordered on the river, the 
van of the army was now ascending a gently-sloping 
hill; and here, well hidden by the thick standing 
columns of the forest, by mouldering prostrate trunks, 
by matted undergrowth, and long rank grasses, lay 
on either flank the two fatal ravines where the In- 
dian allies of the French were crouched in breathless 
ambuscade. No man saw the danger, when sudden- 
ly a discordant cry arose in front, and a murderous 
fire blazed in the teeth of the astonished grenadiers. 
Instinctively as it were, the survivors returned the 
volley, and returned it with good effect ; for a ran- 
dom shot struck down the brave Beaujeu, and the 
courage of the assailants was staggered by his fall. 
Dumas, second in command, rallied them to the at- 
tack; and while he, with the French and Canadians, 
made good the pass in front, the Indians opened a 
deadly fire on the right and left of the British col- 
umns. 2 In a few moments, all was confusion. The 
advanced guard fell back on the main body, and 
every trace of subordination vanished. The fire soon 
extended along the whole length of the army, 
from front to rear. Scarce an enemy could be seen, 
though the forest resounded with their yells ; though 
every bush and tree was alive with incessant flashes; 

1 Plans of Braddock's march, in the Library of Harvard College. 

2 Sparks, II. 473. 



100 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



though the lead flew like a hailstorm, and with every 
moment the men went down by scores. The regular 
troops seemed bereft of their senses. They huddled 
together in the road like flocks of sheep; and happy 
did he think himself who could wedge his way into the 
midst of the crowd, and place a barrier of human flesh 
between his life and the shot of the ambushed marks- 
men. Many were seen eagerly loading their muskets, 
and then firing them into the air, or shooting their own 
comrades, in the insanity of their terror. The oflicers, 
for the most part, displayed a conspicuous gallantry; 
but threats and commands were wasted alike on 
the panic-stricken multitude. It is said that at the 
outset Braddock showed signs of fear; but he soon 
recovered his wonted intrepidity. Five horses were 
shot under him, and five times he mounted afresh. 1 
He stormed and shouted, and, while the Virginians 
were fighting to good purpose, each man behind a tree, 
like the Indians themselves, he ordered them with fu- 
rious menace to form in platoons, where the fire of the 
enemy mowed them down like grass. At length, a 
mortal shot silenced him, and two provincials bore 
him off the field. Washington rode through the tu- 
mult calm and undaunted. Two horses were killed 
under him, and four bullets pierced his clothes; 2 but 
his hour was not come, and he escaped without a 
wound. Gates was shot through the body, and Gage 
also was severely wounded. Of eighty-six oflicers, 
only twenty-three remained unhurt ; and of twelve 
hundred soldiers who crossed the Monongaheia, more 
than seven hundred were killed and wounded. None 

1 Letter — Captain Orme, his aide-de-camp, to , July 18. 

2 Sparks, I. 67. 



Chap. IV.] EESULTS OF BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



101 



suffered more severely than the Virginians, who had 
displayed throughout a degree of courage and steadi- 
ness which put the cowardice of the regulars to 
shame. The havoc among them was terrible, for of 
their whole number scarcely one fifth left the field 
alive. 1 

The slaughter lasted three hours; when, at length, 
the survivors, as if impelled by a general impulse, 
rushed tumultuously from the place of carnage, and 
with dastardly precipitation fled across the Monon- 
gahela. The enemy did not pursue beyond the river, 
nocking back to the field to collect the plunder, and 
gather a rich harvest of scalps. The routed troops 
pursued their flight until they met the rear division of 
the army under Colonel Dunbar ; and even then their 
senseless terrors did not abate. Dunbar's soldiers * 
caught the infection. Cannon, baggage, and wagons 
were destroyed, and all fled together, eager to escape 
from the shadows of those awful woods, whose hor- 
rors haunted their imagination. They passed the de- 
fenceless settlements of the border, and hurried on to 
Philadelphia, leaving the unhappy people to defend 
themselves as they might against the tomahawk and 
scalping-knife. 

The calamities of this disgraceful overthrow did not 
cease with the loss of a few hundred soldiers on the 

1 " The Virginia troops showed a inclined to do their duty, to almost 

good deal of bravery, and were nearly 'certain death ; and at last, in despite 

all killed ; for I believe, out of three of all the efforts of the officers to the 

companies that were there, scarcely contrary, they ran, as sheep pursued 

thirty men are left alive. Captain by dogs, and it was impossible to 

Peyrouny, and all his officers, down rally them." — Writings of Washing- 

to a corporal, were killed. Captain ton, II. 87. 

Poison had nearly as hard a fate, for The English themselves bore re- 
only one of his was left. In short, the luctant testimony to the good con- 
dastardly behavior of those they call duct of the Virginians. — See Entick, 
regulars exposed all others, that were Hist. Late War, 147. 

I* 



102 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



field of battle ; for it entailed upon the provinces all 
the miseries of an Indian war. Those among the 
tribes who had thus far stood neutral, wavering be- 
tween the French and English, now hesitated no 
longer. Many of them had been disgusted by the 
contemptuous behavior of Braddock. All had learned 
to despise the courage of the English, and to regard 
their own prowess with unbounded complacency. It 
is not in Indian nature to stand quiet in the midst 
of war ; and the defeat of Braddock was a signal for 
the western savages to snatch their tomahawks and 
assail the English settlements with one accord; to 
murder and pillage with ruthless fury, and turn the 
whole frontier of Pennsylvania and Virginia into one 
wide scene of woe and desolation. 

The three remaining expeditions which the British 
ministry had planned for that year's campaign were 
attended with various results. Acadia was quickly 
reduced by the forces of Colonel Monkton ; but the 
glories of this easy victory were tarnished by an act 
of high-handed oppression. Seven thousand of the 
unfortunate people, refusing to take the prescribed 
oath of allegiance, were seized by the conquerors, torn 
from their homes, placed on shipboard like cargoes 
of negro slaves, and transported to the British prov- 
inces. 1 The expedition against Niagara was a total 
failure, for the troops did not even reach their des- 
tination. The movement against Crown Point met 
with no better success as regards the main object of 
the enterprise. Owing to the lateness of the season, 
and other causes, the troops proceeded no farther than 
Lake George; but the attempt was marked by an 

i Haliburton, Hist Nova Scotia, I. Chap. IV. 



Chap. IV.] 



BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE. 



103 



achievement of arms, which, in that day of failures, 
was greeted, both in England and America, as a signal 
victory. 

General, afterwards Sir William Johnson had been 
charged with the conduct of the Crown Point expedi- 
tion ; and his little army, a rude assemblage of hunters 
and farmers from New York and New England, lay 
encamped at the southern extremity of Lake George. 
Here, while they languidly pursued their preparations, 
their active enemy anticipated their designs. Baron 
Dieskau, who, with a strong body of troops, had 
reached Quebec in the squadron which sailed from 
Brest in the spring, had intended to take forcible pos- 
session of the fort of Oswego, erected upon ground 
claimed by the French as part of Canada. Learning 
Johnson's movements, he changed his plan, crossed 
Lake Champlain, made a circuit by way of Wood 
Creek, and gained the rear of the English army, with 
a force of about two thousand French and Indians. 
At midnight, on the seventh of September, the tidings 
reached Johnson that the army of the French baron 
was but a few miles distant from his camp. A council 
of war was called, and the strange resolution formed 
of detaching a thousand men to meet the enemy. " If 
they are to be killed," said Hendrick, the Mohawk 
chief, " they are too many ; if they are to fight, they 
are too few." His remonstrance was unheeded, and 
the brave old savage, unable, from age and corpulence, 
to fight on foot, mounted his horse, and joined the 
English detachment with two hundred of his warriors. 
At sunrise, the party defiled from the camp, and, enter- 
ing the forest, disappeared from the eyes of their 
comrades. 

Those who remained behind labored with all the 



\ 



104 COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 

energy of alarm to fortify their unprotected camp. 
An hour elapsed, when from the distance was heard a 
sudden explosion of musketry. The excited soldiers 
suspended their work to listen. A rattling fire suc- 
ceeded, deadened among the woods, but growing louder 
and nearer, till none could doubt that their comrades 
had met the French, and were defeated. 

This was indeed the case. Marching through thick 
woods, by the narrow and newly-cut road which led 
along the valley stretching southward from Lake 
George, Williams, the English commander, had led his 
men full into an ambuscade, where all Dieskau's army 
lay in wait to receive them. From the woods on both 
sides rose an appalling shout, followed by a storm of 
bullets. Williams was soon shot down ; Hendrick 
shared his fate ; many officers fell, and the road was 
strewn with dead and wounded soldiers. The English 
gave way at once. Had they been regular troops, the 
result would have been most fatal ; but every man was 
a woodsman and a hunter. Some retired in bodies 
along the road ; but the greater part spread themselves 
through the forest, opposing a wide front to the enemy, 
and fighting stubbornly as they retreated. They shot 
back at the French from behind every tree or bush that 
could afford a cover. The Canadians and Indians 
pressed them closely, darting, with shrill cries, from 
tree to tree, while Dieskau's regulars, with steadier 
advance, bore all before them. Far and wide through 
the forest rang shout, and shriek, and Indian whoop, 
mingled with the deadly rattle of guns. Retreating 
and pursuing, the combatants passed northward towards 
the English camp, leaving the ground behind them 
strewn with dead and dying. 

A fresh detachment from the camp came in aid of 



Chap. IV.] 



BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE. 



105 



the English, and the pursuit was checked. Yet the 
retreating men were not the less rejoiced when they 
could discern, between the brown columns of the 
woods, the mountains and waters of Lake George, 
with the white tents of their encampments on its 
shore. The French followed no farther. The blast 
of their trumpets was heard recalling their scattered 
men for a final attack. 

During the absence of Williams' detachment, the 
main body of the army had covered the front of their 
camp with a breastwork, if that name can be applied 
to a row of logs, behhid which the marksmen lay flat 
on their faces. This preparation was not yet complete, 
when the defeated troops appeared issuing from the 
woods. Breathless and perturbed, they entered the 
camp, and lay down with the rest. Full of dismal 
forebodings, the army waited the attack. Soon, at the 
edge of the woods which bordered the open space in 
front, painted Indians were seen, and bayonets glittered 
among the foliage, shining, in the homely comparison 
of a New England soldier, like a row of icicles on a 
January morning. The French regulars marched in 
column to the edge of the clearing, and formed in line, 
confronting the English at the distance of a hundred 
and fifty yards. Their complete order, their white 
uniforms and bristling bayonets, were a new and 
startling sight to the eyes of Johnson's rustic soldiers, 
who raised but a feeble cheer in answer to the shouts 
of their enemies. Happily, Dieskau made no assault. 
The regulars opened a distant fire, throwing volley 
after volley of musketry against the English, while the 
Canadians and Indians, dispersing through the morasses 
on each flank of the camp, fired sharply, under cover 
of the trees and bushes. In the rear, the English 
14 



106 COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 

were protected by the lake ; but on the three remaining 
sides, they were hedged in by the flash and smoke of 
musketry. 

The fire of the French had little effect. The Eng- 
lish recovered from their first surprise, and every 
moment their confidence rose higher and their shouts 
grew louder. Levelling their long hunting guns with 
cool precision, they returned a fire which thinned the 
ranks of the French, and galled them beyond endurance. 
Two cannon were soon brought to bear upon the mo- 
rasses which sheltered the Canadians and Indians ; and 
though the pieces were served with little skill, the 
assailants were so terrified by the crashing of the 
balls among the trunks and branches, that they gave 
way at once. Dieskau still persisted in the attack. 
From noon until past four o'clock, the firing was 
scarcely abated, when, at length, the French, who had 
suffered extremely, showed signs of wavering. At 
this, with a general shout, the English broke from 
their camp, and rushed upon their enemies, striking 
them down with the buts of their guns, and driving 
them through the woods like deer. Dieskau was 
taken prisoner, dangerously wounded, and leaning for 
support against the stump of a tree. The slaugh- 
ter would have been great, had not the English gen- 
eral recalled the pursuers, and suffered the French to 
continue their flight unmolested. Fresh disasters still 
awaited the fugitives ; for, as they approached the 
scene of that morning's ambuscade, they were greeted 
by a volley of musketry. Two companies of New 
York and New Hampshire rangers, who had come 
out from Fort Edward as a scouting party, had lain 
in wait to receive them. Favored by the darkness of 
the woods, — for night was now approaching, — they 



Chap. IV.] 



PEOGRESS OF THE WAR. 



107 



made so sudden and vigorous an attack, that the 
French, though far superior in number, were totally 
routed and dispersed. 1 

On this day, the British colonists of America, for 
the first time, encountered in battle the trained sol- 
diers of Europe. That memorable conflict has cast 
its dark associations over one of the most beautiful 
spots in America. Near the scene of the evening 
fight, a pool, half overgrown by weeds and water lilies, 
and darkened by the surrounding forest, is pointed out 
to the tourist, and he is told that beneath its stagnant 
waters lie the bones of three hundred Frenchmen, 
deep buried in mud and slime. 

The war thus begun was prosecuted for five succeed- 
ing years with the full energy of both nations. The 
period was one of suffering and anxiety to the colonists, 
who, knowing the full extent of their danger, spared 
no exertion to avert it. In the year 1758, Lord Aber- 
crombie, who then commanded in America, had at his 



1 Holmes, II. 210. Trumbull, Hist. 
Conn. II. 368. Dwight, Travels, III. 
361. Hoyt, Indian Wars, 279. En- 
tick, Hist. Late War, I. 153. Re- 
view of Military Operations in North 
America. Johnson's Letter to the 
Provincial Governors. Blodgett's 
Prospective View of the Battle near 
Lake George. 

Blodgett's pamphlet is accompa- 
nied by a curious engraving, giving 
a bird's eye view of the battle, in- 
cluding the surprise of Williams' 
detachment, and the subsequent at- 
tack on the camp of Johnson. In 
the first half of the engraving, the 
French army is represented lying in 
ambuscade in the form of a horse- 
shoe. Hendrick is conspicuous among 
the English, from being mounted on 
horseback, while all the others are 
on foot. In the view of the battle at 
the lake, the English are represented 



lying flat on their faces, behind their 
breastwork, and busily firing at the 
French and Indians, who are seen 
skulking among the woods and 
thickets. 

I am again indebted to President 
Sparks for the opportunity of exam- 
ining several curious manuscripts re- 
lating to the battle of Lake George. 
Among them is Dieskau's official ac- 
count of the affair, and a curious 
paper, also written by the defeated 
genera], and containing the story of 
his disaster, as related by himself 
in an imaginary conversation with 
his old commander, Marshal Saxe, 
in the Elysian Fields. Several wri- 
ters have stated that Dieskau died of 
his wounds. This, however, was 
not the case. He was carried pris- 
oner to England, where he lived for 
several years, but returned to France 
after the peace of 1763. 



108 COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



disposal a force amounting to fifty thousand men, of 
whom the greater part were provincials. 1 The opera- 
tions of the war embraced a wide extent of country, 
from Cape Breton and Xova Scotia to the sources of 
the Ohio ; hut nowhere was the contest so actively 
carried on as in the neighborhood of Lake George, the 
waters of which, joined with those of Lake Champlain, 
formed the main avenue of communication between 
Canada and the British provinces. Lake George is 
more than thirty miles long, but of width so slight 
that it seems like some broad and placid river, enclosed 
between ranges of lofty mountains ; now contracting 
into narrows, thickly dotted with islands and shadowed 
by cliffs and precipices, and now spreading into a clear 
and open expanse. It had long been known to the 
French. The wandering Jesuits had called it Lac St. 
Sacrement, in achniration of its romantic scenery and 
the cool purity of its waters, which they loved to 
use in their sacred rites. Its solitude was now 
rudely invaded. Armies passed and repassed upon its 
tranquil bosom. At its northern point the French 
planted their stronghold of Ticonderoga ; at its south- 
ern stood the English fort William Henry, while the 
mountains and waters between were a scene of ceaseless 
ambuscades, surprises, and forest skhniisking. Through 
summer and whiter, the crack of rifles and the cries 
of men gave no rest to then: echoes, and at this day, on 
the field of many a forgotten fight, are dug up rusty 
tomahawks, corroded bullets, and human bones, to 
attest the struggles of the past. 

The earlier years of the war were unpropitious to 
the English, whose commanders displayed no great 



i Holmes, II. 2*26. 



Chap. IV.] OSWEGO — FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 



109 



degree of vigor or ability. In the summer of 1756, 
the French general Montcalm advanced upon Oswego, 
took it, and levelled it to the ground. In August 
of the following year, he struck a heavier blow. 
Passing Lake George with a force of eight thousand 
men, including about two thousand Indians, gathered 
from the farthest parts of Canada, he laid siege to Fort 
William Henry, close to the spot where Dieskau had 
been defeated two years before. Erecting his batteries 
against it, he beat down its ramparts and dismounted 
its guns, until the garrison, after a brave defence, were 
forced to capitulate. They marched out with the hon- 
ors of war ; but scarcely had they done so, when 
Montcalm's Indians assailed them, cutting down and 
scalping them without mercy. Those who escaped 
came in to Fort Edward with exaggerated accounts 
of the horrors from which they had fled, and a general 
terror was spread through the country. The inhab- 
itants were mustered from all parts to repel the ad- 
vance of Montcalm; but the French general, satisfied 
with what he had done, repassed Lake George, and 
retired behind the walls of Ticonderoga. 

In the year 1758, the war began to assume a differ- 
ent aspect, for Pitt was at the head of the government. 
Sir Jeffrey Amherst laid siege to the strong fortress 
of Louisburg, and at length reduced it ; while in the 
south, General Forbes inarched against Fort du Quesne, 
and, more fortunate than his predecessor, Braddock, 
drove the French from that important point. Another 
successful stroke was the destruction of Fort Fron- 
tenac, which was taken by a provincial army under 
Colonel Bradstreet. These achievements were coun- 
terbalanced by a signal disaster. Lord Abercrombie, 
with an army of sixteen thousand men, advanced to 

j 



110 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



the head of Lake George, the place made memorable 
by Dieskau's defeat and the loss of Fort William 
Henry. On a brilliant July morning, he embarked 
his whole force for an attack on Ticonderoga. Many 
of those present have recorded with admiration the 
beauty of the spectacle, the lines of boats filled with 
troops stretching far down the lake, the flashing of 
oars, the glitter of weapons, and the music ringing 
back from crags and rocks, or dying in mellowed 
strains among the distant mountains. At night, the 
army landed, and, driving in the French outposts, 
marched through the woods towards Ticonderoga. 
One of their columns, losing its way in the forest, fell 
in with a body of the retreating French ; and in the 
conflict that ensued, Lord Howe, the favorite of the 
army, was shot dead. On the following morning, they 
prepared to storm the lines which Montcalm had drawn 
across the peninsula hi front of the fortress. Advan- 
cing to the attack, they saw before them a breastwork 
of uncommon height and thickness. The French army 
were drawn up behind it, their heads alone visible, as 
they levelled their muskets against the assailants, while, 
for a hundred yards hi front of the work, the ground 
was covered with felled trees, with sharpened branches 
pointing outward. The signal of assault was given. 
In vain the Highlanders, screaming with rage, hewed 
with their broadswords among the branches, struggling 
to get at the enemy. In vain the English, with their 
deep-toned shout, rushed on in heavy columns. A 
tempest of musket balls met them, and Montcalm's 
cannon swept the whole ground with terrible carnage. 
A few officers and men forced their way through the 
branches, passed the ditch, climbed the breastwork, and, 
leaping among the enemy, were instantly bayonetted. 



Ceap. IV.] 



STATE OF CANADA. 



11] 



Yet, though the English fought four hours with 
determined valor, the position of the French was im- 
pregnable ; and at length, having lost two thousand 
of their number, the army drew off, leaving many of 
their dead scattered upon the field. A sudden panic 
seized the defeated troops. They rushed in haste to 
their boats, and, though no pursuit was attempted, 
they did not regain their composure until Lake George 
was between them and the enemy. The fatal lines 
of Ticonderoga were not. soon forgotten in the prov- 
inces ; and marbles in Westminster Abbey preserve 
the memory of those who fell on that disastrous day. 

This repulse, far from depressing the energies of 
the British commanders, seemed to stimulate them to 
new exertion; and the campaign of the next year, 
1759, had for its object the immediate and total re- 
duction of Canada. This unhappy country was full 
of misery and disorder. Peculation and every kind 
of corruption prevailed among its civil and military 
chiefs, a reckless licentiousness was increasing among 
the people, and a general famine seemed impending, 
for the population had of late years been drained 
away for military service, and the fields were left un- 
tilled. In spite of their sufferings, the Canadians, 
strong in rooted antipathy to the English, and highly 
excited by their priests, resolved on fighting to the 
last. Prayers were offered up in the churches, masses 
said, and penances enjoined, to avert the wrath of God 
from the colony, while every thing was done for its 
defence which the energies of a great and patriotic 
leader could effect. 1 

By the plan of this summer's campaign, Canada 



i Smith, Hist. Canada, I. Chap. VI. 



112 COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 

was to be assailed on three sides at once. Upon the 
west, General Prideaux was to attack Niagara ; upon 
the south, General Amherst was to advance upon 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point; while upon the east, 
General Wolfe was to besiege Quebec ; and each of 
these armies, having accomplished its particular ob- 
ject, was directed to push forward, if possible, until 
all three had united their forces in the heart of 
Canada. In pursuance of the plan, General Prideaux 
moved up Lake Ontario and invested Niagara. This 
post was one of the greatest importance. Its capture 
would cut off the French from the whole interior 
country, and they therefore made every effort to raise 
the siege. An army of seventeen hundred French 
and Indians, collected at the distant garrisons of De- 
troit, PresquTsle, Le Bceuf, and Venango, suddenly 
appeared before Niagara. 1 Sir William Johnson was 
now in command of the English, Prideaux having 
been killed by the bursting of a cohorn. Advancing 
in order of battle, he met the French, charged, rout- 
ed, and pursued them for five miles through the 
woods. This success was soon followed by the sur- 
render of the fort. 

In the mean time, Sir Jeffrey Amherst had crossed 
Lake George, and appeared before Ticonderoga ; upon 
which the French blew up their works, and retired 
down Lake Champlain to Crown Point. Retreating 
from this position also, on the approach of the Eng- 
lish army, they collected all their forces, amounting 
to little more than three thousand men, at Isle Aux 
Noix, where they intrenched themselves, and prepared 
to resist the farther progress of the invaders. The 



1 Annual Register, 1759, p. 33. 



Chap. IV.] 



WOLFE BEFOEE QUEBEC. 



113 



lateness of the season prevented Amherst from carry- 
ing out the plan of advancing into Canada, and com- 
pelled him to go into winter- quarters at Crown Point. 
The same cause had withheld Pricleaux's army from 
descending the St. Lawrence. 

While the outposts of Canada were thus success- 
fully attacked, a blow was struck at a more vital 
part. Early in June, General Wolfe sailed up the 
St. Lawrence with a force of eight thousand men, and 
formed his camp immediately below the city, on the 
Island of Orleans. 1 From thence he coidd discern, 
at a single glance, how arduous was the task before 
him. Piles of lofty cliffs rose with sheer ascent on 
the northern border of the river; and from their 
summits the boasted citadel of Canada looked down 
in proud security, with its churches and convents of 
stone, its ramparts, bastions, and batteries, while over 
them all, from the very brink of the precipice, towered 
the massive walls of the Castle of St. Louis. Above, 
for many a league, the bank was guarded by an un- 
broken range of steep acclivities. Below, the River 
St, Charles, flowing into the St. Lawrence, washed 
the base of the rocky promontory on which the city 
stood. Lower yet lay an army of fourteen thousand 
men, under an able and renowned commander, the 
Marquis of Montcalm. His front was covered by in- 
trenchments and batteries, which lined the bank of 
the St. Lawrence ; his right wing rested on the city 
and the St. Charles; his left on the cascade and deep 
gulf of Montmorenci ; and thick forests extended along 
his rear. Opposite Quebec rose the high promontory 
of Point Levi; and the St. Lawrence, contracted to 



i Mante, Hist. Late War, 238. 

15 j* 



114 COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 

less than a mile in width, flowed between, with deep 
and powerful current. To a chief of less resolute 
temper, it might well have seemed that art and nature 
were in league to thwart his enterprise ; but a mind 
like that of Wolfe could only have seen in this ma- 
jestic combination of forest and cataract, mountain 
and river, a fitting theatre for the great drama about 
to be enacted there. 

Yet nature did not seem to have formed the young 
English general for the conduct of a doubtful and 
almost desperate enterprise. His person was slight, 
and his features by no means of a martial cast. His 
feeble constitution had been undermined by years of 
protracted and painful disease. 1 His kind and genial 
disposition seemed better fitted for the quiet of do- 
mestic life, than for the stern duties of military com- 
mand; but to these gentler traits he joined a high 
enthusiasm, and an unconquerable spirit of daring 
and endurance, which made him the idol of his sol- 
diers, and bore his slender frame through every hard- 
ship and exposure. 

The work before him demanded all his courage. 
How to invest the city, or even bring the army of 
Montcalm to action, was a problem which might have 
perplexed a Hannibal. A French fleet lay in the river - 
above, and the precipices along the northern bank 
were guarded at every accessible point by sentinels 

i " I have this day signified to Mr, w ould lead me into Germany ; and if 

Pitt that he may dispose of my slight my poor talent was consulted, they 

carcass as he pleases, and that I am should place me to the cavalry, be- 

ready for any undertaking within the cause nature has given me good eyes, 

reach and compass of my skill and and a warmth of temper to follow the 

cunning. I am in a very bad con- first impressions. However, it is not 

dition, both with the gravel and rheu- our part to choose, but to obey." — 

matism; but I had much rather die Letter — Wolfe to William Rickson, 

than decline any kind of service that Salisbury, December 1, 1758. 
offers: if I followed my own taste, it 



Chap. IV.] 



ASSAULT AT MOXTMORENCL 



115 



and outposts. Wolfe would have crossed the Mont- 
morenci by its upper ford, and attacked the French 
army on its left and rear ; but the plan was thwarted 
by the nature of the ground and the sleepless vigi- 
lance of his adversaries. Thus baffled at every other 
point, he formed the bold design of storming Mont- 
calm's position in front ; and on the afternoon of the 
thirty-first of July, a strong body of troops was em- 
barked in boats, and, covered by a furious cannonade 
from the English ships and batteries, landed on the 
beach just above the mouth of the Montmorenci. 
The grenadiers and Royal Americans were the first 
on shore, and their ill-timed impetuosity proved the 
ruin of the plan. Without waiting to receive their 
orders or form their ranks, they ran, pellmell, across 
the level ground between, and with loud shouts be- 
gan, each man for himself, to scale the heights which 
rose in front, crested with intrenchments and bristling 
with hostile arms. The French at the top threw 
volley after volley among the hotheaded assailants. 
The slopes were soon covered with the fallen ; and 
at that instant a storm, which had long been threat- 
ening, burst with sudden fury, drenched the combat- 
ants on both sides with a deluge of rain, extinguished 
for a moment the fire of the French, and at the same 
time made the steeps so slippery that the grenadiers 
fell repeatedly in their vain attempts to climb. Night 
was coming on with double darkness. The retreat 
was sounded, and, as the English reembarked, troops 
of Indians came whooping down the heights, and 
hovered about their rear, to murder the stragglers 
and the wounded; while exulting shouts and cries of 
Vive le roi, from the crowded summits, proclaimed 
the triumph of the enemy. 



116 COLLISION OF THE EIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV, 

With bitter agony of mind, Wolfe beheld the head- 
long folly of his men, and saw more than four hun- 
dred of the flower of his army fall a useless sacri- 
fice. 1 The anxieties of the siege had told severely 
upon his slender constitution; and not long after this 
disaster, he felt the first symptoms of a fever, which 
soon confined him to his couch. Still his mind never 
wavered from its purpose; and it was while lying 
helpless in the chamber of a Canadian house, where 
he had fixed his head-quarters, that he embraced the 
plan of that heroic enterprise which robbed him of 
life, and gave him immortal fame. 

The plan had been first proposed during the height 
of Wolfe's illness, at a council of his subordinate 
generals, Monkton, Townshend, and Murray. It was 
resolved to divide the little army, and, while one por- 
tion remained before Quebec to alarm the enemy by 
false attacks, and distract their attention from the 
scene of actual operation, the other was to pass above 
the town, land under cover of darkness on the north- 
ern shore, climb the guarded heights, gam the plains 
above, and force Montcalm to quit his vantage-ground, 
and perhaps to offer battle. The scheme was daring 
even to rashness ; but its singular audacity was the 
secret of its success. 

Early hi September, a crowd of ships and trans- 
ports, under Admiral Holmes, passed the city amidst 
the hot firing of its batteries ; while the troops de- 
signed for the expedition, amounting to scarcely five 
thousand, marched upward along the southern bank, 
beyond reach of the cannonade. AH were then em- 
barked; and on the evening of the twelfth, Holmes' 



1 Knox, Journals, I. 358. 



Chap. IV.] 



HEROISM OF WOLFE. 



in 



fleet, with the troops on board, lay safe at anchor in 
the river, several leagues above the town. These 
operations had not failed to awaken the suspicions 
of Montcalm; and he had detached M. Bougainville 
to watch the movements of the English, and prevent 
their landing on the northern shore. 

The eventful night of the twelfth was clear and 
calm, with no light but that of the stars. Within 
two hours before daybreak, thirty boats, crowded with 
sixteen hundred soldiers, cast off from the vessels, 
and floated downward, in perfect order, with the cur- 
rent of the ebb tide. To the boundless joy of the 
army, Wolfe's malady had abated, and he was able 
to command in person. His ruined health, the gloomy 
prospects of the siege, and the disaster at Montmo- 
renci, had oppressed him with the deepest melancholy, 
but never impaired for a moment the promptness of 
his decisions, or the impetuous energy of his action. 1 
He sat hi the stern of one of the boats, pale and 
weak, but borne up to a calm height of resolu- 
tion. Every order had been given, every arrangement 
made, and it only remained to face the issue. The 
ebbing tide sirfhced to bear the boats along, and noth- 
ing broke the silence of the night but the gurgling 



i Entick, IV. 111. 

In his Letter to the Ministry, dated 
Sept. 2, Wolfe writes in these de- 
sponding words : — 

"By the nature of the river, the 
most formidable part of this arma- 
ment is deprived of the power of act- 
ing ; yet we have almost the whole 
force of Canada to oppose. In this 
situation there is such a choice of 
difficulties, that I own myself at a 
loss how to determine. The affairs 
of Great Britain I know require the 
most vigorous measures, but then the 



courage of a handful of brave troops 
should be exerted only where there 
is some hope of a favorable event. 
However, you may be assured, that 
the small part of the campaign which 
remains shall be employed (as far as 
I am able) for the honor of his Majes- 
ty, and the interest of the nation ; in 
which I am sure of being well sec- 
onded by the admiral and by the 
generals: happy if oar efforts here 
can contribute to the success of his 
Majesty's arms in any other part of 
America." 



118 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



of the rivet and the low voice of Wolfe as he re- 
peated to the officers about him the stanzas of Gray's 
Elegy in a Country Churchyard, which had recently 
appeared, and which he had just received from Eng- 
land. Perhaps, as he uttered those strangely appropri- 
ate words, 

" The paths of glory lead but to the grave," 

the shadows of his own approaching fate stole with 
mournful prophecy across his mind. " Gentlemen," 
he said, as he closed his recital, "I would rather 
have written those lines than take Quebec to-morrow." 1 

As they approached the landing-place, the boats 
edged closer in towards the northern shore, and the 
woody precipices rose high on their left, like a wall 
of undistinguished blackness. 

" Qui vive ? " shouted a French sentinel, from out 
the impervious gloom. 

" La France ! " answered a captain of Fraser's 
Highlanders, from the foremost boat. 

"A quel regiment ?" demanded the soldier. 

" De la Heine ! " promptly replied the Highland 
captain, who chanced to know that the corps so des- 
ignated formed part of Bougainville's command. As 
boats were frequently passing down the river with 
supplies for the garrison, and as a convoy from Bou- 
gainville was expected that very night, the sentinel 
was deceived, and allowed the English to proceed. 

1 " This anecdote was related by in the Transactions of the Royal So- 

the late celebrated John Robison, Pro- ciety of Edinburgh, 
fessor of Natural Philosophy in the m , 

T-r c -ri t , u l • i- ' The paths of glory lead but to the grave ' 

University of Edinburgh, who, m his 1 e 

youth, was a midshipman in the Brit- is one of the lines which Wolfe must 
ish navy, and was in the same boat have recited as he strikingly exern- 
with Wolfe. His son, my kinsman, plified its application." — Grahame, 
Sir John Robison, communicated it Hist. U. S. IV. 50. See also Play- 
to me, and it has since been recorded fair's Works, IV. 126. 



Chap. IV.] THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM. 



119 



A few moments after, they were challenged again, 
and this time they could discern the soldier running 
close down to the water's edge, as if all his suspicions 
were aroused ; but the skilful replies of the Highlander 
once more saved the party from discovery. 1 

They reached the landing-place in safety — an in- 
dentation in the shore, about a league above the city, 
and now bearing the name of Wolfe's Cove. Here a 
narrow path led up the face of the heights, and a 
French guard was posted at the top to defend the 
pass. By the force of the current, the foremost boats, 
including that which carried Wolfe himself, were borne 
a little below the spot. The general was one of the 
first on shore. He looked upward at the rugged 
heights which towered above him hi the gloom. " You 
can try it," he coolly observed to an officer near him ; 
"but I don't think you'll get up." 2 

At the point where the Highlanders landed, one of 
their captains, Donald Macdonald, apparently the same 
whose presence of mind had just saved the enterprise 
from ruin, was climbing in advance of his men, when 
he was challenged by a sentinel. He replied in 
French, by declaring that he had been sent to relieve 
the guard, and ordering the soldier to withdraw. 3 Be- 
fore the latter was undeceived, a crowd of Highlanders 
were close at hand, while the steeps below were 
thronged with eager climbers, dragging themselves up 
by trees, roots, and bushes. 4 The guard turned out, 

1 Smollett, V. 56, note, (Edinburgh, Quebec, by John Johnson, clerk and 

1805.) Mante simply mentions that quartermaster in the 58th regiment, 

the English were challenged by the The journal is written with great 

sentinels, and escaped discovery by care, and abounds in curious details, 

replying in French. 3 Knox, Journal, II. 68, note. 

a This incident is mentioned in a 4 Despatch of Admiral Saunders, 

manuscript journal of the siege of Sept. 20, 1759. 



120 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



and made a brief though brave resistance. In a mo- 
ment, they were cut to pieces, dispersed, or made pris- 
oners ; while men after men came swarming up the 
height, and quickly formed upon the plains above. 
Meanwhile, the vessels had dropped downward with 
the current, and anchored opposite the landing-place. 
The remaining troops were disembarked, and, with 
the dawn of day, the whole were brought in safety 
to the shore. 

The sun rose, and, from the ramparts of Quebec, the 
astonished people saw the Plains of Abraham glittering 
with arms, and the dark-red lines of the English form- 
ing in array of battle. Breathless messengers had 
borne the evil tidings to Montcalm, and far and near 
his wide-extended camp resounded with the rolling of 
alarm drums and the din of startled preparation, He 
too had had his struggles and his sorrows. The civil 
power had thwarted him ; famine, discontent, and dis- 
affection were rife among his soldiers; and no small 
portion of the Canadian militia had dispersed from 
sheer starvation. In spite of all, he had trusted to 
hold out till the winter frosts should drive the invaders 
from before the town ; when, on that disastrous morn- 
ing, the news of their successful temerity fell like a 
cannon shot upon his ear. Still he assumed a tone of 
confidence. " They have got to the weak side of us at 
last," he is reported to have said, " and we must crush 
them with our numbers." With headlong haste, his 
troops were pouring over the bridge of the St. Charles, 
and gathering in heavy masses under the western ram- 
parts of the town. Could numbers give assurance of 
success, their triumph would have been secure ; for five 
French battalions and the armed colonial peasantry 
amounted in all to more than seven thousand five 



Chap. IV.] 



BATTLE OE QUEBEC. 



121 



hundred men. Full in sight before them stretched the 
long, thin lines of the British forces — the half- wild 
Highlanders, the steady soldiery of England, and the 
hardy levies of the provinces — less than five thousand 
in number, but ail inured to battle, and strong in the 
full assurance of success. Yet, could the chiefs of 
that gallant army have pierced the secrets of the future, 
could they have foreseen that the victory which they 
burned to achieve would have robbed England of her 
proudest boast, that the conquest of Canada would 
pave the way for the independence of America, their 
swords would have dropped from their hands, and the 
heroic fire have gone out within their hearts. 

It was nine o'clock, and the adverse armies stood 
motionless, each gazing on the other. The clouds hung 
low, and, at intervals, warm light showers descended, 
besprinkling both alike. The coppice and cornfields 
in front of the British troops were filled with French 
sharpshooters, who kept up a distant, spattering fire. 
Here and there a soldier fell in the ranks, and the gap 
was filled in silence. 

At a little before ten, the British could see that 
Montcalm was preparing to advance, and, in a few 
moments, all his troops appeared in rapid motion. 
They came on in three divisions, shouting after the 
manner of their nation, and firing heavily as soon as 
they came within range. In the British ranks, not a 
trigger was pulled, not a soldier stirred; and their 
ominous composure seemed to damp the spirits of the 
assailants. It was not till the French were within 
forty yards that the fatal word was given. At once, 
from end to end of the British line, the muskets rose 
to the level, as if with the sway of some great ma- 
chine, and the whole blazed forth at once in one crash- 
16 K 



122 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



ing explosion. Like a ship at full career, arrested with. 
sudden ruin on a sunken rock, the columns of Mont- 
calm staggered, shivered, and broke before that wasting 
storm of lead. The smoke, rolling along the field, for 
a moment shut out the view; but when the white 
wreaths were scattered on the wind, a wretched spec- 
tacle was disclosed; men and officers tumbled in 
heaps, columns resolved into a mob, order and obedi- 
ence gone ; and when the British muskets were levelled 
for a second volley, the masses were seen to cower and 
shrink with uncontrollable panic. For a few minutes, 
the French regulars stood their ground, returning a 
sharp and not ineffectual fire. But now, echoing cheer 
on cheer, redoubling volley on volley, trampling the 
dying and the dead, and driving the fugitives hi crowds, 
the British troops advanced and swept the field before 
them. The ardor of the men burst all restraint. They 
broke into a run, and with unsparing slaughter chased 
the flying multitude to the very gates of Quebec. 
Foremost of all, the light-footed Highlanders dashed 
along in furious pursuit, hewing down the Frenchmen 
with their broadswords, and slaying many in the very 
ditch of the fortifications. Never was victory more 
quick or more decisive. 1 

In the short action and pursuit, the French lost fif- 
teen hundred men, killed, wounded, and taken. Of the 
remainder, some escaped within the city, and others 
fled across the St. Charles to rejoin their comrades who 

1 Despatch of General Townshend, cess of Quebec. Annual Regis- 
Sept. 20. Gardiner, Memoirs of the ter for 1759, 40. 
Siege of Quebec, 28. Journal of An eloquent account of the siege 
the Siege of Quebec, by a Gentle- and capture of Quebec will be found 
man in an Eminent Station on the in Mr. Warburton's Conquest of 
Spot, 40. Letter to a Right Hon- Canada, 
orable Patriot on the Glorious Sue- 



Ceap. IV.] 



DEATH OE WOLFE. 



123 



had been left to guard the camp. The pursuers were 
recalled by sound of trumpet; the broken ranks were 
formed afresh, and the English troops withdrawn be- 
yond reach of the cannon of Quebec. Bougainville, 
with his detachment, arrived from the upper country, 
and, hovering about their rear, threatened an attack ; 
but when he saw what greeting was prepared for him, 
he abandoned his purpose and withdrew. Townshend 
and Murray, the only general officers who remained 
unhurt, passed to the head of every regiment in turn, 
and thanked the soldiers for the bravery they had 
shown ; yet the triumph of the victors was mingled 
with sadness as the tidings went from rank to rank 
that "Wolfe had fallen. 

In the heat of the action, as he advanced at the 
head of the grenadiers of Louisburg, a bullet shattered 
his wrist ; but he wrapped his handkerchief about the 
wound, and showed no sign of pain. A moment more, 
and a ball pierced his side. Still he pressed forward, 
waving his sword and cheering his soldiers to the 
attack, when a third shot lodged deep within his breast. 
He paused, reeled, and, staggering to one side, fell to 
the earth. Brown, a lieutenant of the grenadiers, Hen- 
derson, a volunteer, an officer of artillery, and a private 
soldier raised him together in their arms, and, bearing 
him to the rear, laid him softly on the grass. They 
asked if he would have a surgeon ; but he shook his 
head, and answered that all was over with him. His 
eyes closed with the torpor of approaching death, and 
those around sustained his fainting form. Yet they 
could not withhold their gaze from the wild turmoil 
before them, and the charging ranks of their compan- 
ions rushing through fire and smoke. " See how they 
run," one of the officers exclaimed, as the French fled 



124 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



in confusion before the levelled bayonets. "Who 
run'?" demanded Wolfe, opening his eyes like a man 
aroused from sleep. " The enemy, sir," was the reply ; 
" they give way every where." " Then," said the dying 
general, " tell Colonel Burton to march Webb's regi- 
ment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat 
from the bridge. Now, God be praised, I will die in 
peace," he murmured; and, turning on his side, he 
calmly breathed his last. 1 

Almost at the same moment fell his great adversary, 
Montcalm, as he strove, with useless bravery, to rally 
his shattered ranks. Struck down with a mortal 
wound, he was placed upon a litter and borne to the 
General Hospital on the banks of the St. Charles. The 
surgeons told him that he could not recover. " I am 
glad of it," was his calm reply. He then asked how long 
he might survive, and was told that he had not many 
hours remaining. " So much the better," he said ; " I 
am happy that I shall not live to see the surrender of 
Quebec." Officers from the garrison came to his bed- 
side to ask his orders and instructions. " I will give 
no more orders," replied the defeated soldier; "I have 
much business that must be attended to, of greater 
moment than your ruined garrison and this wretched 
country. My time is very short ; therefore, pray leave 
me." The officers withdrew, and none remained in the 
chamber but his confessor and the Bishop of Quebec. 
To the last, he expressed his contempt for his own 
mutinous and half-famished troops, and his admiration 
for the disciplined valor of his opponents. 2 He died 

i Knox, II. 78. Knox derived his 2 Knox, II. 77. 
information from the person who 
supported Wolfe in his dying mo- 
ments. 



Chap. IV.] 



SURRENDER OF QUEBEC. 



125 



before midnight, and was buried at bis own desire in 
a cavity of the earth formed by the bursting of a 
bombshell. 

The victorious army encamped before Quebec, and 
pushed their preparations for the siege with zealous 
energy ; but before a single gun was brought to bear, 
the white flag was hung out, and the garrison surren- 
dered. On the eighteenth of September, 1759, the 
rock-built citadel of Canada passed forever from the 
hands of its ancient masters. 

The victory on the Plains of Abraham and the down- 
fall of Quebec filled all England with pride and exulta- 
tion. From north to south, the whole land blazed 
with illuminations, and resounded with the ringing of 
bells, the firing of guns, and the shouts of the multi- 
tude. In one village alone all was dark and silent 
amid the general joy; for here dwelt the widowed 
mother of Wolfe. The populace, with unwonted del- 
icacy, respected her lonely sorrow, and forbore to ob- 
trude the sound of their rejoicings upon her grief 
for one who had been through life her pride and sol- 
ace, and repaid her love with a tender and constant 
devotion. 1 

Canada, crippled and dismembered by the disasters 
of this year's campaign, lay waiting, as it were, the 
final stroke which was to extinguish her last remains 
of life, and close the eventful story of French domin- 
ion in America. Her limbs and her head were lopped 
away, but life still fluttered at her heart. Quebec, 
Niagara, Frontenac, and Crown Point had fallen ; but 
Montreal and the adjacent country still held out, and 
thither, with the opening season of 1760, the British 

i Annual Register for 1759, 43. 



126 



COLLISION OF THE RIVAL COLONIES. [Chap. IV. 



commanders turned all their energies. Three armies 
were to enter Canada at three several points, and, con- 
quering as they advanced, converge towards Montreal 
as a common centre. In accordance with this plan, 
Sir Jeffrey Amherst embarked at Oswego, crossed Lake 
Ontario, and descended the St. Lawrence with ten thou- 
sand men ; while Colonel Haviland advanced by way 
of Lake Champlain and the River Sorel, and General 
Murray ascended from Quebec, with a body of the vet- 
erans who had fought on the Plains of Abraham. 

By a singular concurrence of fortune and skill, the 
three armies reached the neighborhood of Montreal on 
the same day. The feeble and disheartened garrison 
could offer no resistance, and on the eighth of Septem- 
ber, 1760, the Marquis de Vaudreuil surrendered Can- 
ada, with all its dependencies, to the British crown. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS AT THE CLOSE 
OF THE FRENCH WAR. 

We have already seen how, after the defeat of 
Braddock, the western tribes rose with one accord 
against the English. Then, for the first time, Penn- 
sylvania felt the scourge of Indian war; and her 
neighbors, Maryland and Virginia, shared her misery. 
Through the autumn of 1755, the storm raged with 
devastathig fury ; but the following year brought 
some abatement of its violence. This may be ascribed 
partly to the interference of the Iroquois, who, at the 
instances of Sir William Johnson, urged the Dela- 
wares to lay down the hatchet, and partly to the per- 
suasions of several prominent men among the Quakers, 
who, by kind and friendly treatment, had gained the 
confidence of the Indians. 1 By these means, that por- 
tion of the Delawares and their kindred tribes who 
dwelt upon the Susquehanna, were induced to send 
a deputation of chiefs to Easton, in the summer of 
1757, to meet the provincial delegates; and here, 
after much delay and difficulty, a treaty of peace was 
concluded. 

This treaty, however, did not embrace the Indians 
of the Ohio, who comprised the most formidable part 

1 Gordon, Hist. Perm. 321. Causes Shawanese Indians from the British 
of the Alienation of the Delaware and Interest, MS. Johnson Papers. 



128 THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 

of the Delawares and Shawanoes, and who still con- 
tinued their murderous attacks. It was not till the 
summer of 1758, when General Forbes, with a consider- 
able army, was advancing against Fort du Quesne, that 
these exasperated savages could be brought to reason. 
Well knowing that, should Forbes prove successful, 
they might expect a summary chastisement for their 
misdeeds, they began to waver in their attachment to 
the French; and the latter, in the hour of peril, 
found themselves threatened with desertion by allies 
who had shown an ample alacrity in the season of 
prosperity. This new tendency of the Ohio Indians 
was fostered by a wise step on the part of the Eng- 
lish. A man was found bold and hardy enough to 
venture into the midst of their villages, bearing the 
news of the treaty at Easton, and the approach of 
Forbes, coupled with proposals of peace from the 
governor of Pennsylvania. 

This stout-hearted emissary was Christian Frederic 
Post, a Moravian missionary, who had long lived with 
the Indians, had twice married among them, and, by 
his upright dealings and plain good sense, had gained 
their confidence and esteem. His devout and consci- 
entious spirit, his fidelity to what he deemed his duty, 
his imperturbable courage, his prudence and his ad- 
dress, well fitted him for the critical mission. His 
journals, written in a style of quaint simplicity, are 
full of lively details, and afford a minute and graphic 
picture of forest life and character. He left Phila- 
delphia in July, attended by a party of friendly In- 
dians, on whom he relied for protection. Reaching 
the Ohio, he found himself beset with incalculable 
perils from the jealousy and malevolence of the sav- 
age warriors, and the machinations of the French, 



Chap. V.] THE DELAWARE S AND SHAWANOES. 



129 



who would gladly have destroyed him. 1 Yet he found 
friends wherever he went, and finally succeeded in 
convincing the Indians that their true interest lay in 
a strict neutrality. When, therefore, Forbes appeared 
before Fort clu Quesne, the French found themselves 



1 The following are extracts from 
his journals : — 

" We set out from Kushkushkee 
for Sankonk ; my company consisted 
of twenty-five horsemen and fifteen 
foot. We arrived at Sankonk in the 
afternoon. The people of the town 
were much disturbed at my coming-, 
and received me in a very rough man- 
ner. They surrounded me with drawn 
knives in their hands, in such a man- 
ner that I could hardly get along ; 
running up against me with their 
breasts open, as if they wanted some 
pretence to kill me. I saw by their 
countenances they sought my death. 
Their faces were quite distorted with 
rage, and they went so far as to say, 
I should not live long ; but some In- 
dians, with whom I was formerly ac- 
quainted, coming up and saluting me 
in a friendly manner, their behavior 
to me was quickly changed." .... 
" Some of my party desired me not to 
stir from the fire, for that the French 
had offered a great reward for my 
scalp, and that there were several par- 
ties out on that purpose. Accordingly 
I stuck constantly as close to the fire 
as if I had been chained there 

" In the afternoon, all the captains 
gathered together in the middle town ; 
they sent for us, and desired we should 
give them information of our message. 
Accordingly we did. We read the 
message with great satisfaction to 
them. It was a great pleasure both 
to them and us. The number of cap- 
tains and counsellors were sixteen. 
In the evening, messengers arrived 
from Fort Duquesne, with a string 
of wampum from the commander; 
upon which they all came together 
in the house where Ave lodged. The 
messengers delivered their string,with 
these words from their father, the 
French king : — 

17 



" ' My children, come to me, and 
hear what I have to say. The Eng- 
lish are coming with an army to de- 
stroy both you and me. I therefore 
desire you immediately, my children, 
to hasten with all the young men ; we 
will drive the English and destroy 
them. I, as a father, will tell you 
always what is best.' He laid the 
string before one of the captains. 
After a little conversation, the captain 
stood up, and said, ' I have just heard 
something of our brethren, the Eng- 
lish, which pleaseth me much better. 
I will not go. Give it to the others ; 
maybe they will go.' The messenger 
took up again the string, and said, 
'He won't go; he has heard of the 
English.' Then all cried out, 'Yes, 
yes, we have heard from the Eng- 
lish.' He then threw the string to 
the other fire-place, where the other 
captains were ; but they kicked it 
from one to another, as if it was a 
snake. Captain Peter took a stick, 
and with it flung the string from one 
end of the room to the other, and 
said, ' Give it to the French captain, 
and let him go with his young men ; 
he boasted much of his fighting ; now 
let us see his fighting. We have often 
ventured our lives for him ; and had 
hardly a loaf of bread when we came 
to him ; and now he thinks we should 
jump to serve him.' Then we saw 
the French captain mortified to the 
uttermost ; he looked as pale as death. 
The Indians discoursed and joked till 
midnight ; and the French captain 
sent messengers at midnight to Fort 
Duquesne." 

The kicking about of the wampum 
belt is the usual indication of contempt 
for the message of which the belt is 
the token. The uses of wampum will 
be described hereafter. 



130 



THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 



abandoned to their own resources ; and, unable to bold 
their ground, they retreated down the Ohio, leaving 
the fort an easy conquest to the invaders. During 
the autumn, the Ohio Indians sent their deputies to 
Easton, where a great council was held, and a formal 
peace concluded with the provinces. 1 

While the friendship of these tribes was thus lost 
and regained, their ancient tyrants, the Iroquois, re- 
mained in a state of loose and critical attachment. 
At the outbreak of the war, they had shown, it is 
true, many signs of friendship ; 2 but the disasters of 
the first campaign had given them but a contemptible 
idea of British prowess. This impression was deep- 
ened, when, on the following year, they saw Oswego 
taken by the French, and the British general, Webb, 
retreat with dastardly haste from an enemy who did 
not dream of pursuing him. At this time, some of 
the confederates actually took up the hatchet on the 
side of France, and there was danger that the rest 
might follow their example. 3 But now a new element 
was infused into the British counsels. The fortunes 
of the conflict began to change. Du Quesne and Lou- 
isburg were taken, and the Iroquois conceived a better 
opinion of the British arms. Their friendship was no 
longer a matter of doubt; and in 1760, when Amherst 
was preparing to advance on Montreal, the warriors 
flocked to his camp like vultures to the expected car- 
cass. Yet there is little doubt, that, had their sachems 
and orators followed the dictates of their cooler judg- 
ment, they would not have aided in destroying Canada ; 
for they could see that in the colonies of France lay 

1 Minutes of Council at Easton, the Chief Sachems and Warriors of 
1758. the Six Nations, (Lond. 1756.) 

2 Account of Conferences between 3 MS. Johnson Papers. 
Major General Sir W. Johnson, and 



Chap. V.] WESTERN TKIBES — THE FOEEST. 131 

the only barrier against the growing pUwer and ambi- 
tion of the English provinces. 

The Hnrons of Lorette, the Abenakis, and other 
domiciliated tribes of Canada ranged themselves on the 
side of France throughout the war, and at its conclu- 
sion, they, in common with the Canadians, may be re- 
garded in the light of a conquered people. 

The numerous tribes of the remote west had, with 
few exceptions, played the part of active allies of the 
French ; and warriors might be found on the farthest 
shores of Lake Superior who garnished their war-dress 
with the scalp-locks of murdered Englishmen. . With 
the conquest of Canada, these tribes subsided into a 
state of passive inaction, which was not destined long 
to continue. 

And now, before launching into the story of that 
sanguinary war, which forms our proper and immediate 
theme, it will be well to survey the grand arena of the 
strife, the goodly heritage which the wretched tribes 
of the forest struggled to retrieve from the hands of 
the spoiler. 

One vast, continuous forest shadowed the fertile soil, 
covering the land as the grass covers a garden lawn, 
sweeping over hill and hollow in endless undulation, 
burying mountains in verdure, and mantling brooks 
and rivers from the light of day. Green intervals 
dotted with browsing deer, and broad plains blackened 
with buffalo, broke the sameness of the woodland 
scenery. Unnumbered rivers seamed the forest with 
their devious windings. Vast lakes washed its bounda- 
ries, where the Indian voyager, hi his birch canoe, could 
descry no land beyond the world of waters. Yet this 
prolific wilderness, teeming with waste fertility, was but 
a hunting-ground and a battle-field to a few fierce 



132 



THE WELDEKNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 



hordes of saVuges. Here and there, in some rich, 
meadow opened to the sun, the Indian squaws turned 
the black mould with their rude implements of bone 
or iron, and sowed their scanty stores of maize and 
beans. Human labor drew no other tribute from that 
inexhaustible soil. 

So thin and scattered was the native population, that, 
even in those parts which were thought well peopled, 
one might sometimes journey for days together through 
the twilight forest, and meet no human form. Broad 
tracts were left in solitude. All Kentucky was a va- 
cant waste, a mere skirmishmg ground for the hostile 
war-parties of the north and south. A great part of 
Upper Canada, of Michigan, and of Illinois, besides 
other portions of the west, were tenanted by wild 
beasts alone. To form a close estimate of the num- 
bers of the erratic bands who roamed this wilderness 
would be a vain attempt ; but it may be affirmed that, 
between the Mississippi on the west and the ocean on 
the east, between the Ohio on the south and Lake 
Superior on the north, the whole Indian population, at 
the close of the French war, did not greatly exceed ten 
thousand fighting men. Of these, following the state- 
ment of Sir William Johnson, hi 1763, the Iroquois 
had nineteen hundred and fifty, the Delawares about 
six hundred, the Shawanoes about three hundred, the 
Wyandots about four hundred and fifty, and the Miami 
tribes, with their neighbors the Kickapoos, eight hun- 
dred ; while the Ottawas, the Ojibwas, and other wan- 
dering tribes of the north, defy all efforts at enu- 
meration. 1 

1 The estimates given by Cro- But the discrepancy is no greater 
ghan, Bouquet, and Hutching, do not than might have been expected from 
quite accord with that of Johnson, the difficulties of the case. 



Chap. V.] 



NATIVE POPULATION. 



133 



A close survey of the condition of the tribes at this 
period will detect some signs of improvement, but many 
more of degeneracy and decay. To commence with 
the Iroquois, for to them with justice the priority be- 
longs : Onondaga, the ancient capital of their confed- 
eracy, where their council-fire had burned from imme- 
morial time, was now no longer what it had been in 
the days of its greatness, when Count Frontenac had 
mustered all Canada to assail it. The thickly-clustered 
dwellings, with their triple rows of palisades, had van- 
ished. A little stream, twisting along the valley, 
choked up with logs and driftwood, and half hidden 
by woods and thickets, some forty houses of bark, scat- 
tered along its banks, amid rank grass, neglected clumps 
of bushes, and ragged patches of corn and peas, — such 
was Onondaga when Bartram saw it, and such, no 
doubt, it remained at the time of which I write. 1 Con- 
spicuous among the other structures, and distinguished 
only by its superior size, stood the great council-house, 
whose bark walls had often sheltered the congregated 
wisdom of the confederacy, and heard the highest 
efforts of forest eloquence. The other villages of the 
Iroquois resembled Onondaga ; for though several were 
of larger size, yet none retained those defensive stock- 
ades which had once protected them. 2 From their Euro- 
pean neighbors the Iroquois had borrowed many appli- 
ances of comfort and subsistence. Horses, swine, and in 
some instances cattle, were to be found among them. 
Guns and gunpowder aided them in the chase. Knives, 
hatchets, kettles, and hoes of iron had supplanted their 

1 Bartram, Observations, 41. missionary tour among the Iroquois 

2 I am indebted to the kindness in 1765. The journal contains much 
of Rev. S. K. Lothrop for a copy of information respecting their manners 
the journal of Mr. Kirkland on his and condition at this period. 

L 



134 



THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 



rude household utensils and implements of tillage; 
but with all this, English whiskey had more than can- 
celled every benefit which English civilization had 
conferred. 

High up the Susquehanna were seated the Nanti- 
cokes, Conoys, and Mohicans, with a portion of the 
Delawares. Detached bands of the western Iroquois 
dwelt upon the head waters of the Alleghany, mingled 
with their neighbors, the Delawares, who had several 
villages upon this stream. The great body of the latter 
nation, however, lived upon the Beaver Creeks and the 
Muskingum, in numerous scattered towns and hamlets, 
whose barbarous names it is useless to record. Squalid 
log cabins and conical wigwams of bark were clustered 
at random, or ranged to form rude streets and squares. 
Starveling horses grazed on the neighboring meadows ; 
girls and children bathed and laughed in the adjacent 
river; warriors smoked their pipes in haughty indo- 
lence; squaws labored in the cornfields, or brought 
fagots from the forest, and shrivelled hags screamed 
from lodge to lodge. In each village one large build- 
ing stood prominent among the rest, devoted to pur- 
poses of public meeting, dances, festivals, and the 
entertainment of strangers. Thither the traveller 
would be conducted, seated on a bear-skin, and plenti- 
fully regaled with hominy and venison. 

The Shawanoes had fixed their abode upon the 
Scioto and its branches. Farther towards the west, 
on the waters of the Wabash and the Maumee, dwelt 
the Miamis, who, less exposed, from their position, to 
the poison of the whiskey keg, and the example of 
debauched traders, retained their ancient character and 
customs in greater purity than their eastern neighbors. 
This cannot be said of the Illinois, who dwelt near the 



Chap. V.] THOKOUGHFAEES Or THE FOREST. 



135 



borders of the Mississippi, and who, having lived for 
more than half a century in close contact with the 
French, had become a corrupt and degenerate race. 
The Wyandots of Sandusky and Detroit far surpassed 
the surrounding tribes hi energy of character and 
social progress. Their log dwellings were strong and 
commodious, their agriculture was very considerable, 
then name stood high in war and policy, and by all 
the adjacent Indians they were regarded with deference. 
It is needless to pursue farther this catalogue of tribes, 
since the position of each will appear hereafter as they 
advance hi turn upon the stage of action. 

The English settlements lay like a narrow strip be- 
tween the wilderness and the sea, and, as the sea had 
its ports, so also the forest had its places of rendezvous 
and outfit. Of these, by far the most important in the 
northern provinces was the frontier city of Albany. 
From thence it was that traders and soldiers, bound to 
the country of the Iroquois, or the more distant wilds 
of the ulterior, set out upon their arduous journey. 
Embarking hi a bateau or a canoe, rowed by those 
hardy men who earned their livelihood in this service, 
the traveller would ascend the Mohawk, passing the 
old Dutch town of Schenectady, the two seats of Sir 
William Johnson, Fort Hunter at the mouth of the 
Schoharie, and Fort Herkimer at the German Flats, 
until he reached Fort Stanwix at the head of the river 
navigation. Then crossing over land to Wood Creek, 
he would follow its tortuous course, overshadowed by 
the dense forest on its banks, until he arrived at the 
little fortification called the Royal Blockhouse, and the 
waters of the Oneida Take spread before him. Cross- 
ing to its western extremity, and passhig under the 
wooden ramparts of Fort Brewerton, he would descend 



136 



THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 



the River Oswego to Oswego, 1 on the banks of Lake 
Ontario. Here the vast navigation of the Great Lakes 
would be open before him, interrupted only by the 
difficult portage at the Cataract of Niagara. 

The chief thoroughfare from the middle colonies to 
the Indian country was from Philadelphia westward, 
across the Alleghanies, to the valley of the Ohio. 
Peace was no sooner concluded with the hostile tribes, 
than the adventurous fur-traders, careless of risk to life 
and property, hastened over the mountains, each eager 
to be foremost in the wilderness market. Their mer- 
chandise was sometimes carried in wagons as far as 
the site of Fort du Quesne, which the English rebuilt 
after its capture, changing its name to Fort Pitt. From 
this point the goods were packed on the backs of 
horses, and thus distributed among the various Indian 
villages. More commonly, however, the whole journey 
was performed by means of trains, or, as they were 

1 MS. Journal of Lieutenant Go- pay, I think the gentlemen discover 

rell, 1763. Anonymous MS. Journal no common share of philosophy in 

of a Tour to Niagara in 1765. The keeping themselves from running 

following is an extract from the mad. Officers and soldiers, with 

latter : — their wives and children, legitimate 

"July 2d. Dined with Sir Wm. and illegitimate, make altogether a 

at Johnson Hall. The office of pretty compound oglio, which does 

Superintendent very troublesome, not tend towards showing military 

Sir Wm. continually plagued with matrimony off" to any great advan- 

Indians about him — generally from tage. . . . 

300 to 900 in number — spoil his " Monday, 14th. Went on horse- 
garden, and keep his house always back by the side of Wood Creek 20 
dirty. . . . miles, to the Royal Blockhouse, a 

" 10th. Punted and rowed up the kind of wooden castle, proof against 

Mohawk River against the stream, any Indian attacks. It is now aban- 

which, on account of the rapidity of doned by the troops, and a Sutler 

the current, is very hard work for lives there, who keeps rum, milk, 

the poor soldiers. Encamped on the rackoons, etc., which, though none 

banks of the River, about 9 miles of the most elegant, is comfortable 

from Harkimer's. to strangers passing that way. The 

" The inconveniences attending a Blockhouse is situated on the east 

married Subaltern strongly appear in end of the Oneida Lake, and is sur- 

this tour. What with the sickness rounded by the Oneida Indians, one 

of their wives, the squealing of their of the Six Nations." 
children, and the smallness of their 



Chap. V.] 



THE FOREST TRAVELLER. 



137 



called, brigades of packhorses, which, leaving the fron- 
tier settlements, climbed the shadowy heights of the 
Alleghanies, and threaded the forests of the Ohio, 
diving through thickets, and wading over streams. 
The men employed in this perilous calling were a 
rough, bold, and intractable class, often as fierce and 
truculent as the Indians themselves. A blanket coat, 
or a frock of smoked deer-skin, a rifle on the shoulder, 
and a knife and tomahawk in the belt, formed their 
ordinary equipment. The principal trader, the owner 
of the merchandise, would fix his head-quarters at some 
large Indian town, whence he would despatch his subor- 
dinates to the surrounding villages, with a suitable sup- 
ply of blankets and red cloth, guns and hatchets, liquor, 
tobacco, paint, beads, and hawk's bells. This wild traffic 
was liable to every species of disorder ; and it is not to 
be wondered at that, in a region where law was un- 
known, the jealousies of rival traders should become 
a fruitful source of broils, robberies, and murders. 

In the backwoods, all land travelling was on foot, or 
on horseback. It was no easy matter for a novice, em- 
barrassed with his cumbrous gun, to urge his horse 
through the thick trunks and undergrowth, or even to 
ride at speed along the narrow Indian trails, where, at 
every yard, the impending branches switched him across 
the face. At night, the camp would be formed by the 
side of some rivulet or spring, and, if the traveller was 
skilful in the use of his rifle, a haunch of venison 
would often form his evening meal. If it rained, a 
shed of elm or bass wood bark was the ready work of an 
hour, a pile of evergreen boughs formed a bed, and the 
saddle or the knapsack a pillow. A party of Indian 
wayfarers would often be met journeying through the 
forest, a chief, or a warrior, perhaps, with his squaws 
18 l* 



138 



THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 



and family. The Indians would usually make their 
camp in the neighborhood of the white men ; and at 
meal time the warrior would seldom fail to seat himself 
by the traveller's fire, and gaze with solemn gravity at 
the viands before him. If, when the repast was over, 
a fragment of bread or a cup of coffee should be 
handed to him, he would receive these highly-prized 
rarities with a deep ejaculation of gratitude ; for noth- 
ing is more remarkable in the character of this people 
than the union of inordinate pride and a generous love 
of glory with the mendicity of a beggar or a child, 

He who wished to visit the remoter tribes of the 
Mississippi valley — an attempt, however, which, until 
several years after the conquest of Canada, no English- 
man could have made without great risk of losing 
his scalp — would find no easier course than to descend 
the Ohio in a canoe or bateau. He might float for 
more than eleven hundred miles down this liquid 
highway of the wilderness, and except the deserted 
cabins of Logstown, a little below Fort Pitt, the 
remnant of a Shawanoe village at the mouth of the 
Scioto, and an occasional hamlet or solitary wigwam 
along the luxuriant banks, he would discern no trace 
of human habitancv through, all this vast extent. 
The body of the Indian population lay to the north- 
ward, about the waters of the tributary streams. It 
behoved the voyager to observe a sleepless caution 
and hawk-eyed vigilance. Sometimes his anxious 
scrutiny would detect a faint blue smoke stealing 
upward above the green bosom of the forest, and 
betraying the encamping place of some linking war- 
party. Then the canoe would be drawn in haste be- 
neath the overhanging bushes which skirted the shore ; 
nor would the voyage be resumed until darkness closed, 



Chap. V.] 



THE FOREST TRAVELLER. 



139 



when the little vessel would drift swiftly and safely- 
past the point of danger. 1 

Within the nominal limits of the Illinois Indians, 
and towards the southern extremity of the present 
state of Illinois, were those isolated Canadian settle- 
ments, which had subsisted here since the latter part 
of the previous century. Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and 
Vincennes were the centres of this scattered popula- 
tion. From Vincennes one might paddle his canoe 
northward up the Wabash, until he reached the little 
wooden fort of Ouatanon. Thence a path through 
the woods led to the banks of the Maumee. Two 
or three Canadians, or half breeds, of whom there were 
numbers about the fort, would carry the canoe on their 
shoulders, or, for a bottle of whiskey, a few Miami 
Indians might be bribed to undertake the task. On 
the Maumee, at the end of the path, stood Fort Mi- 
ami, near the spot where Fort Wayne was after- 
wards built. From this point one might descend the 
Maumee to Lake Erie, and visit the neighboring fort 
of Sandusky, or, if he chose, steer through the Strait 
of Detroit, and explore the watery wastes of the 
northern lakes, finding occasional harborage at the 
little military posts which commanded their impor- 
tant points. Most of these western posts were trans- 
ferred to the English, during the autumn of 1760; 
but the settlements of the Illinois remained several 
years longer under French control. 

Eastward, on the waters of Lake Erie and the Al- 

1 Mitchell, Contest in America, die British Colonies. Beatty, Journal 
Pouchot, Guerre de l'Amerique. of a Tour in America. Smith, Nar- 
Hutchins, Expedition against the rative. M'Cullough, Narrative. Jem- 
Ohio Indians, appendix. Hutchins, mison. Narrative. Post, Journals. 
Topographical Description of Vir- Washington, Journals, 1753-1770. 
ginia, etc. Pownall, Topographical Gist, Journal, 1750. Croghan, Jour- 
Description of North America. . Ev- nal, 1765, etc., etc. 
ans, Analysis of a Map of the Mid- 



140 



THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 



leghany, stood three small forts, PresquTsle, Le Beeuf, 
and Venango, which had passed into the hands of 
the English soon after the capture of Fort du Quesne. 
The feeble garrisons of all these western posts, exiled 
from civilization, lived in the solitude of military her- 
mits. Through the long, hot days of summer, and 
the protracted cold of winter, time hung heavy on 
their hands. Their resources of employment and rec- 
reation were few and meagre. They found partners 
in their loneliness among the young beauties of the 
Indian camps. They hunted and fished, shot at tar- 
gets, and played at games of chance; and when, by 
good fortune, a traveller found his way among them, 
he was greeted with a hearty and open-handed wel- 
come, and plied with eager questions touching the 
great world from which they were banished men. 
Yet, tedious as it was, their secluded life was seasoned 
with stirring danger. The surrounding forests were 
peopled with a race dark and subtle as their own 
sunless mazes. At any hour, those jealous tribes 
might raise the war-cry. No human foresight could 
predict the sallies of their fierce caprice, and in cease- 
less watching lay the only safety. 

When the European and the savage are brought 
in contact, both are gainers, and both are losers. The 
former loses the refinements of civilization, but he 
gains, in the rough schooling of the wilderness, a proud 
independence, a self-sustaining energy, and powers of 
action and perception before unthought of. The sav- 
age gains new means of comfort and support, cloth, 
iron, and gunpowder ; yet these apparent benefits 
have often proved but instruments of ruin. They 
soon become necessities, and the unhappy hunter, for- 
getting the weapons of his fathers, must thenceforth 



Chap. V.] 



HUNTERS AXD TRAPPERS. 



141 



depend on the white man for ease, happiness, and 
life itself. 

Those rude and hardy men, hunters and traders, 
scouts and guides, who ranged the woods beyond the 
English borders, and formed a connecting link be- 
tween barbarism and civilization, have been touched 
upon already. They were a distinct, peculiar class, 
marked with striking contrasts of good and evil. 
Many, though by no means all, were coarse, auda- 
cious, and unscrupulous; yet, even in the worst, one 
might often have found a vigorous growth of warlike 
virtues, an iron endurance, an undespairing courage, a 
wondrous sagacity, and singular fertility of resource. 
In them was renewed, with all its ancient energy, 
that wild and daring spirit, that force and hardihood 
of mind, which marked our barbarous ancestors of 
Germany and Norway. These sons of the wilderness * 
still survive. We may find them to this day, not in 
the valley of the Ohio, nor on the shores of the 
lakes, but far westward on the desert range of the 
buffalo, and among the solitudes of Oregon. Even 
now, while I write, some lonely trapper is climbing 
the perilous defiles of the Eocky Mountains, his 
strong frame cased in time-worn buck-skin, his rifle 
griped in his sinewy hand. Keenly he peers from 
side to side, lest Blackfoot or Arapahoe should am- 
buscade his path. The rough earth is his bed, a mor- 
sel of dried meat and a draught of water are his food 
and drink, and death and danger his companions. 
JSTo anchorite could fare worse, no hero could dare 
more; yet his wild, hard life has resistless charms; 
and, while he can wield a rifle, he will never leave it. 
Go with him to the rendezvous, and he is a stoic no 
more. Here, rioting among his comrades, his native 



142 THE WILDERNESS AND ITS TENANTS. [Chap. V. 

appetites break loose in mad excess, in deep carouse, 
and desperate gaming. Then follow close the quarrel, 
the challenge, the tight, — two rusty rifles and fifty 
yards of prairie. 

The nursling of civilization, placed in the midst of 
the forest, and abandoned to his own resources, is 
helpless as an infant. There is no clew to the laby- 
rinth. Bewildered and amazed, he circles round and 
round in hopeless wanderings. Despair and famine 
make him their prey, and unless the birds of heaven 
minister to his wants, he dies in misery. Not so 
the practised woodsman. To him, the forest is a 
home. It yields him food, shelter, and raiment, and 
he threads its trackless depths with undeviating foot. 
To lure the game, to circumvent the lurking foe, to 
guide his course by the stars, the wind, the streams, 
or the trees, — such are the arts which the white 
man has learned from the red. Often, indeed, the 
pupil has outstripped his master. He can hunt as 
well; he can fight better; and yet there are niceties 
of the woodsman's craft in which the white man 
must yield the palm to his savage rival. Seldom 
can he boast, in equal measure, that subtlety of 
sense, more akin to the instinct of brutes than to 
human reason, which reads the signs of the forest as 
the scholar reads the printed page, to which the 
whistle of a bird can speak clearly as the tongue of 
man, and the rustle of a leaf give knowledge of life 
or death. 1 With us the name of the savage is a 

i A striking example" of Indian water, a branch of Laramie Creek, 

acuteness once came under my obser- As we prepared to encamp, we ob- 

vation. Travelling in company with served the ashes of a fire, the foot- 

a Canadian named Raymond, and an prints of men and horses, and other 

Ogillallah Indian, we came at night- indications that a party had been 

fall to a small stream called Chug- upon the spot not many days before. 



Chap. V.] THE EUROPEAN AND THE INDIAN. 143 

byword of reproach. The Indian would look with 
equal scorn on those, who, buried in useless lore, are 
blind and deaf to the great world of nature. 



Having secured our horses for the 
night, Raymond and I sat down and 
lighted our pipes, ray companion, who 
had spent his whole life in the Indian 
country, hazarding various conjec- 
tures as to the numbers and charac- 
ter of our predecessors. Soon after, 
we were joined by the Indian, who, 
meantime, had been prowling about 
the place. Raymond asked what 
discovery he had made. He an- 
swered, that the party were friendly, 
and that they consisted of eight men, 



both whites and Indians, several of 
whom he named, affirming that he 
knew them well. To an inquiry how 
he gained his information, he would 
make no intelligible reply. On the 
next day, reaching Fort Laramie, a 
post of the American Fur Company, 
we found that he was correct in every 
particular — a circumstance the more 
remarkable, as he had been with us 
for three weeks, and could have had 
no other means of knowledge than 
we ourselves. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE ENGLISH TAKE POSSESSION OF THE WESTERN 

POSTS. 

The war was over. The plains around Montreal 
were dotted with the white tents of three victorious 
armies, and the work of conquest was complete. Can- 
ada, with all her dependencies, had yielded to the 
British crown ; but it still remained to carry into full 
effect the terms of the surrender and take possession 
of those western outposts, where the lilies of France 
had not as yet descended from the flagstaff. The execu- 
tion of this task, neither an easy nor a safe one, was 
assigned to a provincial officer, Major Robert Rogers. 

Rogers was a native of New Hampshire. He com- 
manded a body of provincial rangers, and stood in high 
repute as a partisan officer. Putnam and Stark were 
his associates ; and it was in this woodland warfare 
that the former achieved many of those startling adven- 
tures and hair-breadth escapes which have made his 
name familiar at every New England fireside. Rogers' 
Rangers, half hunters, half woodsmen, trained in a 
discipline of their own, and armed, like Indians, with 
hatchet, knife, and gun, were employed in a service of 
peculiar hardship. Their chief theatre of action was 
the mountainous region of Lake George, the debatable 
ground between the hostile forts of Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point. The deepest recesses of these romantic 



Chap. VI.] 



ROGERS' RANGERS. 



145 



solitudes had heard the French and Indian yell, and 
the answering shout of the hardy New England men. 
In summer, they passed down the lake in whale boats 
or canoes, or threaded the pathways of the woods in 
single file, like the savages themselves. In winter, they 
journeyed through the swamps on snowshoes, skated 
along the frozen surface of the lake, and bivouacked 
at night among the snow-drifts. They intercepted 
French messengers, encountered French scouting par- 
ties, and carried off prisoners from under the very walls 
of Ticonderoga. Their hardships and adventures, their 
marches and countermarches, their frequent skirmishes 
and midwinter battles, had made them famous through- 
out America ; and though it was the fashion of the 
day to sneer at the efforts of provincial troops, the 
name of Rogers' Rangers was never mentioned but 
with honor. 

Their commander was a man tall and vigorous in 
person and rough in feature. He was versed in all the 
arts of woodcraft, sagacious, prompt, and resolute, yet 
so cautious withal that he sometimes incurred the un- 
just charge of cowardice. His mind, naturally active, 
was by no means uncultivated, and his books and un- 
published letters bear witness that his style as a writer 
was not contemptible. But his vain, restless, and 
grasping spirit, and more than doubtful honesty, proved 
the ruin of an enviable reputation. Six years after the 
expedition of which I am about to speak, he was tried 
by a court-martial for a meditated act of treason, the 
surrender of Fort Michillimackinac into the hands of 
the Spaniards, who were at that time masters of Upper 
Louisiana. 1 Not long after, if we may trust his own 



1 MS. Gage Papers. 

19 



146 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST. 



[Chap. VI. 



account, lie passed over to the Barbary States, entered 
the service of the Dey of Algiers, and fought two bat- 
tles under his banners. At the opening of the war of 
independence, he returned to his native country, where 
he made professions of patriotism, but was strongly 
suspected by many, including Washington himself, of 
acting the part of a spy. In fact, he soon openly 
espoused the British cause, and received a colonel's 
commission from the crown. His services, however, 
proved of little consequence. In 1778, he was pro- 
scribed and banished, under the act of New Hamp- 
shire, and the remainder of his life was passed in such 
obscurity that it is difficult to determine when and 
where he died. 1 

On the twelfth of September, 1760, Rogers, then at 



1 Sabine, American Loyalists, 576. 
Sparks, Writings of Washington, 
III. 208, 244, 439 ; IV. 128, 520, 
524. 

Although Rogers, especially where 
his pecuniary interest was concerned, 
was far from scrupulous, I have no 
hesitation in following his account 
of the expedition up the lakes. The 
incidents of each day are minuted 
down in a dry, unambitious style, 
bearing the clear impress of truth. 
Extracts from the orderly books and 
other official papers are given, while 
portions of the narrative, verified by 
contemporary documents, may stand 
as earnests for the truth of the whole. 

Rogers' published works consist 
of the Journals of his ranging ser- 
vice and his Concise Account of North 
America, a small volume containing 
much valuable information. Both 
appeared in London in 1765. To 
these may be added a curious drama, 
called Ponteach, or the Savages of 
America, which appears to have been 
written, in part at least, by him. It 
is very rare, and besides the copy in 
my possession, I know of but one 
other, which may be found in the 



library of the British Museum. For 
an account of this curious produc- 
tion, see Appendix, B. An engraved 
full-length portrait of Rogers was 
published in London in 1776. He is 
represented as a tall, strong man, 
dressed in the costume of a ranger, 
with a powder-horn slung at his side, 
a gun resting in the hollow of his 
arm, and a countenance by no means 
prepossessing. Behind him, at a lit- 
tle distance, stand his Indian fol- 
lowers. 

The steep mountain called Rogers' 
Slide, near the northern end of Lake , 
George, derives its name from the ^ 
tradition that, during the French 
Avar, being pursued by a party of 
Indians, he slid on snowshoes down 
its precipitous front, for more than a 
thousand feet, to the frozen lake be- 
low. On beholding the achieve- 
ment, the Indians, as well they might, 
believed him under the protection of 
the Great Spirit, and gave over the 
chase. The story seems unfounded ; 
yet it was not far from this mountain 
that the rangers fought one of their * 
most desperate winter battles, against 
a force of many times their number. 



Chap. VI.] 



THE EANGERS ON THE LAKES. 



147 



the height of his reputation, received orders from Sir 
Jeffrey Amherst to ascend the lakes with a detachment 
of rangers, and take possession, in the name of his Bri- 
tannic Majesty, of Detroit, Michillimackmac, and other 
western posts included in the late capitulation. He 
left Montreal, on the following day, with two hundred 
rangers, in fifteen whale boats. They passed the chapel 
of St. Anne's, where Canadian voyage urs, bound for 
the north-west, received absolution and paid their votive 
offerings. Stemming the surges of La Chine and the 
Cedars, they left behind them the straggling hamlet 
which bore the latter name, and formed at that day the 
western limit of Canadian settlement. 1 They gained 
Lake Ontario, skirted its northern shore, amid rough 
and boisterous weather, and crossing at its western 
extremity, reached Fort Niagara on the first of October. 
Carrying their boats over the portage, they launched 
once more above the cataract, and slowly pursued their 
voyage, while Rogers, with a few attendants, hastened 
on in advance to Fort Pitt, to deliver despatches, with 
which he was charged, to General Monkton. This 
errand accomplished, he rejoined his command at 
Presqu'Isle, about the end of the month, and the whole 
proceeded together along the southern margin of Lake 
Erie. The season was far advanced. The wind was 
chill, the lake was stormy, and the woods on shore 
were tinged with the fading hues of autumn. On the 
seventh of November they reached the mouth of Caya- 
hoga River, the present site of Cleveland. No body 
of troops under the British flag had ever before ad- 
vanced so far. The day was dull and rainy, and resolv- 
ing to rest until the weather should improve, Rogers 



Henry, Travels and Adventures, 9. 



148 



THE ENGLISH LN THE WEST. 



[Chap. VI. 



ordered his men to prepare their encampment in the 
neighboring forest. The place has seen strange changes 
since that day. A youthful city has usurped the 
spot where the fish-hawk and the eagle, the wolf and 
the hear, then reigned with undisputed mastery. 

Soon after the arrival of the rangers, a party of In- 
dian chiefs and warriors entered the camp. They pro- 
claimed themselves an embassy from Pontiac, ruler 
of all that country, and directed, in his name, that the 
English should advance no farther until they had had 
an interview with the great chief, who was already 
close at hand. In truth, before the day closed, Pontiac 
himself appeared ; and it is here, for the first time, that 
this remarkable man stands forth distinctly on the page 
of history. He greeted Rogers with the haughty de- 
mand, what was his business in that country, and how 
he dared enter it without his permission. Rogers 
informed him that the French were defeated, that 
Canada had surrendered, and that he was on his way 
to take possession of Detroit, and restore a general 
peace to white men and Indians alike. Pontiac listened 
with attention, but only replied that he should stand 
in the path of the English until morning. Having 
inquired if the strangers were in need of any thing 
which his country could afford, he withdrew, with his 
chiefs, at nightfall, to his own encampment ; while the 
English, ill at ease, and suspecting treachery, stood well 
on their guard throughout the night. 

In the morning, Pontiac returned to the camp with 
his attendant chiefs, and made his reply to Rogers' 
speech of the previous day. He was willing, he said, 
to live at peace with the English, and suffer them to 
remain in his country as long as they treated him with 
due respect and deference. The Indian chiefs and 



Chap. VI.] 



VIEWS OF PONTIAC. 



149 



provincial officers smoked the calumet together, and 
perfect harmony seemed established between them. 1 

Up to this time, Pontiac had been, in word and deed, 
the fast ally of the French ; but it is easy to discern 
the motives that impelled him to renounce his old ad- 
herence. The American forest never produced a man 
more shrewd, politic, and ambitious. Ignorant as he 
was of what was passing in the world, he could clearly 
see that the French power was on the wane, and he 
knew his own interest too well to prop a falling cause. 
By making friends of the English, he hoped to gain 
powerful allies, who would aid his ambitious projects, 
and give him an increased influence over the tribes ; 
and he flattered himself that the new-comers would 
treat him with the same studied respect which the 
French had always observed. In this, and all his other 
expectations of advantage from the English, he was 
doomed to disappointment. 

A cold storm of rain set in, and the rangers were 
detained some days in their encampment. During this 
time, Rogers had several interviews with Pontiac, and 
was constrained to admire the native vigor of his in- 
tellect, no less than the singular control which he exer- 
cised over those around him. 

On the twelfth of Xovember, the detachment was 
again hi motion, and within a few days, they had 
reached the western end of Lake Erie. Here they 
heard that the Detroit Indians were in arms against 
them, and that four hundred warriors lay in ambush at 
the entrance of the river to cut them 01T. But the 
powerful influence of Pontiac was exerted hi behalf cf 
his new friends. The warriors abandoned their design, 

1 Rogers, Journals, 214. Account of North America, 240, 243. 

M * 



150 



THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST. 



[Chap. VI. 



and the rangers continued their progress towards De- 
troit, now within a short distance. 

In the mean time, Lieutenant Brehm had been sent 
forward with a letter to Captain Beletre, the com- 
mandant at Detroit, informing him that Canada had 
capitulated, that his garrison was included in the ca- 
pitulation, and that an English detachment was ap- 
proaching to relieve it. The Frenchman, in great 
wrath at the tidings, disregarded the message as an 
informal communication, and resolved to keep a hos- 
tile attitude to the last. He did his best to rouse 
the fury of the Indians. Among other devices, he 
displayed upon a pole, before the yelling multitude, 
the effigy of a crow pecking a man's head, the crow 
representing himself, and the head, observes Rogers, 
" being meant for my own." All his efforts were Tin- 
availing, and his faithless allies showed unequivocal 
symptoms of defection in the hour of need. 

Rogers had now entered the mouth of the River 
Detroit, whence he sent forward Captain Campbell 
with a copy of the capitulation, and a letter from 
the Marquis de Vaudreuil, directing that the place 
should be given up, in accordance with the terms 
agreed upon between him and General Amherst. Be- 
letre was forced to yield, and with a very ill grace 
declared himself and his garrison at the disposal of 
the English commander. 

The whale boats of the rangers moved slowly up- 
wards between the 1ow t banks of the Detroit, until 
at length the green uniformity of marsh and forest 
w T as relieved by the Canadian houses, which began 
to appear on either bank, the outskirts of the se- 
cluded and isolated settlement. Before them, on the 
right side, they could see the village of the Wyandots, 



Chap. VI.] 



THE RANGERS AT DETROIT. 



151 



and on the left the clustered lodges of the Potta- 
wattamies, while, a little beyond, the nag of France 
was flying for the last time above the bark roofs 
and weather-beaten palisades of the little fortified town. 

The rangers landed on the opposite bank, and 
pitched then- tents upon a meadow, w T hile two offi- 
cers, with a small detachment, went across the river 
to take possession of the place. In obedience to 
their summons, the French garrison defiled upon the 
plain, and laid down their arms. The fleur de lis 
was lowered from the flagstaff, and the cross of St. 
George rose aloft in its place, while seven hundred 
Indian warriors, lately the active allies of France, 
greeted the sight with a burst of triumphant yells. 
The Canadian militia were next called together and 
disarmed. The Indians looked on with amazement 
at their obsequious behavior, quite at a loss to un- 
derstand why so many men should humble themselves 
before so few. Nothing is more effective in gaining 
the respect, or even attachment, of Indians than a dis- 
play of power. The savage spectators conceived the 
loftiest idea of English prowess, and were beyond 
measure astonished at the forbearance of the conquer- 
ors in not killing their vanquished enemies on the spot. 

It was on the twenty-ninth of November, 1760, 
that Detroit fell into the hands of the English. The 
garrison were sent as prisoners down the lake, but 
the Canadian . inhabitants were allowed to retain their 
farms and houses, on condition of swearing allegiance 
to the British crown. An officer was sent southward 
to take possession of the forts Miami and Ouatanon, 
which guarded the communication between Lake Erie 
and the Ohio, while Rogers himself, with a small 
party, proceeded northward to relieve the French gar- 



152 THE ENGLISH IN THE WEST. [Chap. VI. 



rison of Michillimackinac. The storms and gathering 
ice of Lake Huron forced him back without accom- 
plishing his object, and Michillimackinac, with the 
three remoter posts of St. Marie, Green Bay, and St. 
Joseph, remained for the time in the hands of the 
French. During the next season, however, a detach- 
ment of the 60th regiment, then called the Royal 
Americans, took possession of them ; and nothing now 
remained within the power of the French, except the 
few posts and settlements on the Mississippi and the 
Wabash, not included in the capitidation of Montreal. 

The work of conquest was consummated. The 
fertile wilderness beyond the Alleghanies, over which 
France had claimed sovereignty, — that boundless for- 
est, with its tracery of interlacing streams, which, like 
veins and arteries, gave it life and nourishment, — - had 
passed into the hands of her rival. It was by a few 
insignificant forts, separated by oceans of fresh water 
and uncounted leagues of forest, that the two great 
European powers, France first, and now England, en- 
deavored to enforce their claims to this vast and wild 
domain. There is something ludicrous in the disparity 
between the importance of the possession and the 
sleiiclerness of the force employed to maintain it. A 
region embracing so many thousand miles of surface 
w T as consigned to the keeping of some five or six 
hundred men. Yet the force, small as it was, ap- 
peared adequate to its object, for there seemed no 
enemy to contend with. The hands of the French 
were tied by the capitulation, and little apprehension 
was felt from the red inhabitants of the woods. The 
lapse of two years was enough to show how complete 
and fatal was the mistake. 



CHAPTER VII. 



ANGER OF THE INDIANS. — THE CONSPIRACY. 

The country was scarcely transferred to the Eng- 
lish when smothered murmurs of discontent began 
to be audible among the Indian tribes. From the 
head of the Potomac to Lake Superior, and from 
the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, in every wigwam 
and hamlet of the forest, a deep-rooted hatred of the 
English increased with rapid growth. Nor is this to be 
wondered at. We have seen with what sagacious policy 
the French had labored to ingratiate themselves with 
the Indians ; and the slaughter of the Monongahela, 
with the horrible devastation of the western frontier, 
the outrages perpetrated at Oswego, and the massacre 
at Fort William Henry, bore witness to the success 
of their efforts. Even the Delawares and Shawanoes, 
the faithful allies of William Penn, had at length 
been seduced by their blandishments ; and the Iro- 
quois, the ancient enemies of Canada, had half for- 
gotten their former hostility, and well nigh taken part 
against the British colonists. The remote nations of 
the west had also joined in the war, descending in 
their canoes for hundreds of miles, to fight against 
the enemies of France. All these tribes entertained 
towards the English that rancorous enmity which an 
Indian always feels against those to whom he has 
been opposed in war. 
20 



154 



ANGER OF THE INDIANS. 



[Chap. VII. 



Under these circumstances, it behoved the English 
to use the utmost care in their conduct towards the 
tribes. But even when the conflict with France was 
impending, and the alliance with the Indians of the 
last importance, they had treated them with indiffer- 
ence and neglect. They were not likely to adopt a 
different course now that their friendship seemed a mat- 
ter of no consequence. In truth, the intentions of the 
English were soon apparent. In the zeal for retrench- 
ment, which prevailed after the close of hostilities, 
the presents which it had always been customary to 
give the Indians, at stated intervals, were either with- 
held altogether, or doled out with a niggardly and 
reluctant hand ; while, to make the matter worse, the 
agents and officers of government often appropriated 
the presents to themselves, and afterwards sold them 
at an exorbitant price to the Indians. 1 When the 
French had possession of the remote forts, they were 
accustomed, with a wise liberality, to supply the sur- 
rounding Indians with guns, ammunition, and cloth- 
ing, until the latter had forgotten the weapons and 
garments of their forefathers, and depended on the 
white men for support. The sudden withholding of 
these supplies was, therefore, a grievous calamity. 
Want, suffering, and death were the consequences, 
and this cause alone would have been enough to 
produce general discontent. But, unhappily, other 
grievances were superadded. 2 

1 MS. Johnson Papers. tributed, but only observe, as I did 

2 Extract from a MS. letter — Sir in a former letter, that the Indians 
W. Johnson to Governor Colden, (whose friendship was never culti- 
Dec. 24, 1763. vated by the English with that atten- 

"I shall not take upon me to point tion, expense, & assiduity with w h y e 

out the Originall Parsimony <fec. to French obtained their favour.) were 

w h the first defection of the Indians for many years jealous of our growing 

can with justice & certainty be at- power, were repeatedly assured by 



Chap. VII] 



DISORDERS OF THE EUR-TRADE. 



155 



The English fur-trade had never been well regu- 
lated, and it was now in a worse condition than ever. 
Many of the traders, and those in their employ, were 
ruffians of the coarsest stamp, who vied with each 
other in rapacity, violence, and profligacy. They 
cheated, cursed, and plundered the Indians, and out- 
raged their families ; offering, when compared with 
the French traders, who were under better regulation, 
a most unfavorable example of the character of their 
nation. 

The officers and soldiers of the garrisons did their 
full part in exciting the general resentment. For- 
merly, when the warriors came to the forts, they had 
been welcomed by the French with attention and 
respect. The inconvenience which their presence oc- 
casioned had been disregarded, and their peculiarities 
overlooked. But now they were received with cold 
looks and harsh words from the officers, and with 
oaths, menaces, and sometimes blows, from the reck- 



the French (who were at y e pains of 
having many proper emissaries among 
them) that so soon as we became mas- 
ters of this country, we should imme- 
diately treat them with neglect, hem 
them in with Posts & Forts, encroach 
upon their Lands, and finally destroy 
them. All w h after the reduction of 
Canada, seemed to appear too clearly 
to the Indians, who thereby lost the 
great advantages resulting from the 
possession w h the French formerly 
had of Posts & Trade in their Coun- 
try, neither of which they could have 
ever enjoyed but for the notice they 
took of the Indians, & the presents 
they bestowed so bountifully upon 
them, w h however expensive, they 
wisely foresaw was infinitely cheap- 
er, and much more effectual than the 
keeping of a large body of Regular 
Troops, in their several Countrys 



w h however considerable could not 
protect Trade, or cover Settlements, 
but must remain cooped up in their 
garrisons, or else be exposed to the 
Ambuscades & surprises of an En- 
emy over whom (from the nature & 
situation of their country) no im- 
portant Advantage can be gained, — 
from a sense of these Truths the 
French chose the most reasonable & 
most promising Plan, a Plan which 
has endeared their memory to most 
of the Indian Nations, who would I 
fear generally go over to them in 
case they ever got footing again 
in this Country, & who were repeat- 
edly exhorted, & encouraged by the 
French (from motives of Interest & 
dislike w h they will always possess) 
to fall upon us, by representing that 
their liberties & Country were in 
y e utmost danger." 



156 ANGER OF THE INDIANS. [Chap. VIL 

less and brutal soldiers. When, after their trouble- 
some and intrusive fashion, they were lounging every 
where about the fort, or lazily reclining in the shadow 
of the walls, they were met with muttered ejacula- 
tions of impatience or abrupt orders to depart, enforced, 
perhaps, by a touch from the but of a sentinel's 
musket. These marks of contempt were unspeakably 
galling to their haughty spirit. 1 

But what most contributed to the growing discon- 
tent of the tribes was the intrusion of settlers upon 
their lands, at all times a fruitful source of Indian 
hostility. Its effects, it is true, could only be felt by 
those whose country bordered upon the English set- 
tlements ; but among these were the most powerful 
and influential of the tribes. The Delawares and 
Shawanoes, in particular, had by this time been roused 
to the highest pitch of exasperation. Their best lands 
had been invaded, and all remonstrance had been fruit- 
less. They viewed with wrath and fear the steady 
progress of the white man, whose settlements had 
passed the Susquehanna, and were fast extending to 
the Alleghanies, eating away the forest like a spread- 
ing canker. The anger of the Delawares was abun- 
dantly shared by their ancient conquerors, the Six 
Nations. The threatened occupation of Wyoming by 
settlers from Connecticut gave great umbrage to the 

1 Some of the principal causes of They have possessed themselves of 

the war are exhibited with spirit and our Country, it is now in our power 

truth in the old tragedy of "Ponte- to Dispossess them and Recover it, 

ach," written probably by Major if we will but Ejnbrace the opportu- 

Rogers. The portion of the play re- nity before th *y ^ave time to assem- 

ferred to is given in Appendix, B. ble together, and fortify themselves, 

"The English treat us with much there is no time to be lost, let us 

Disrespect, and we have the greatest Strike immediately." — Speech of a 

Reason to believe, by their Behavior, Seneca chief to the Wyandots and Ot- 

they intend to Cut us off entirely ; tawas of Detroit, July, 1761. 



Chap. VH] SINISTER MOVEMENTS OF THE FRENCH. 



157 



confederacy. 1 The Senecas were more especially 
incensed at English intrusion, since, from their po- 
sition, they were farthest removed from the soothing 
influence of Sir William Johnson, and most exposed 
to the seductions of the French, while the Mohawks, 
another member of the confederacy, were justly 
alarmed at seeing the better part of their lands pat- 
ented out without their consent. Some Christian In- 
dians of the Oneida tribe, hi the simplicity of their 
hearts, sent an earnest petition to Sir William John- 
son, that the English forts within the limits of the 
Six Nations might be removed, or, as the petition 
expresses it, kicked out of the way? 

The discontent of the Indians gave great satisfac- 
tion to the Trench, who saw hi it an assurance of 
safe and bloody vengeance on their conquerors. Can- 
ada, it is trite, was gone beyond hope of recovery ; 
but they still might hope to revenge its loss. Interest, 
moreover, as well as passion, prompted them to in- 
flame the resentment of the Indians; for most of 
the inhabitants of the Trench settlements upon the 
lakes and the Mississippi were engaged in the fur- 
trade, and, fearing the English as formidable rivals, 
they would gladly have seen them driven out of the 
country. Traders, habitans, coureurs des bois, and all 
other classes of this singular population, accordingly 



1 Minutes of Con rence with the 
Six Nations at Hartford, 1763, MS. 
Letter — Hamilton to Amherst, May 
10, 1761. 

2 "We are now left in Peace, and 
have nothing to dc bi ; to plant our 
Corn, Hunt the wild Beasts, smoke 
our Pipes, and mind Religion. But 
as these Forts, which are built among 
us, disturb our Peace, & are a great 
hurt to Religion, because some of our 
Warriors are foolish, & some of our 



Brother Soldiers don't fear God, we 
therefore desire that these Forts may 
be pull'd down, & kick'd out of the 
way." 

At a conference at Philadelphia, 
in August, 1761, an Iroquois sachem 
said, " We, your Brethren of the sev- 
en Nations, are penned up like Hoggs. 
There are Forts all around us, and 
therefore we are apprehensive that 
Death is coming upon us." 



158 



AXGEE OF THE IXDIAXS. 



[Chap. YET. 



dispersed themselves among the villages of the In- 
dians, or held coimcils with them in the secret places 
of the woods, urging them to take up arms against 
the English. They exhibited the conduct of the lat- 
ter in its worst light, and spared neither misrepresen- 
tation nor falsehood. They told their excited hearers 
that the English had formed a deliberate scheme to 
root out the whole Indian race, and, with that design, 
had already beo;un to hem them in with settlements 
on the one hand, and a chain of forts on the other. 
Among other atrocious plans for their destruction, 
they had instigated the Cherokees to attack and cle- 
strov the tribes of the Ohio vallev. 1 These groundless 
calumnies found ready belief. The Erench declared, 
in addition, that the King of France had of late years 
fallen asleep; that, during his slumbers, the English 
had seized upon Canada ; but that he was now awake 
again, and that his armies were advancing up the St. 
Lawrence and the Mississippi, to drive out the in- 
truders from the country of their red children. To 
these fabrications was added the more substantial en- 
couragement of arms, ammunition, clothing, and pro- 
visions, which the French trading companies, if not 
the officers of the crown, distributed with a liberal 
hand. 2 

The fierce passions of the Indians, excited by their 
wrongs, real or imagined, and exasperated by the 
representations of the French, were yet farther wrought 
upon by influences of another kind. A prophet rose 
among the Delawares. This man may serve as a coun- 
terpart to the famous Shawanoe prophet, who figured 



1 Croghan's Journal. See Hil- 2 Examination of Gershom Hicks, 
dreth, Pioneer History, 68. Also a spy. See Pennsylvania Gazette, 
Butler, Hist. Kentucky, Appendix. No. 1646. 



Chap. VII.] 



DELAWARE PROPHET. 



159 



so conspicuously in the Indian outbreak under Te- 
eumseh, immediately before the war with England in 
1812. Many other parallel instances might be shown, 
as the great susceptibility of the Indians to religious 
and superstitious impressions renders the advent of a 
prophet among them no very rare occurrence. In 
the present instance, the inspired Delaware seems to 
have been rather an enthusiast than an impostor; or 
perhaps he combined both characters. The objects 
of his mission were not wholly political. By means 
of certain external observances, most of them suf- 
ficiently frivolous and absurd, his disciples were to 
strengthen and purify their natures, and make them- 
selves acceptable to the Great Spirit, whose messenger 
he proclaimed himself to be. He also enjoined them 
to lay aside the weapons and clothing which they 
received from the white men, and return to the primi- 
tive life of their ancestors. By so doing, and by 
strictly observing his other precepts, the tribes would 
soon be restored to their ancient greatness and power, 
and be enabled to drive out the white men who in- 
fested their territory. The prophet had many follow- 
ers. Indians came from far and near, and gathered 
together in large encampments to listen to his exhor- 
tations. His fame spread even to the nations of the 
northern lakes ; but though his disciples followed most 
of his injunctions, flinging away flint and steel, and 
making copious use of emetics, with other observances 
equally troublesome, yet the requisition to abandon 
the use of fire-arms was too inconvenient to be com- 
plied with. 1 

i M'Cullough's Narrative. See In- awares, at the time of the prophet's 
cidents of Border Life, 98. M'Cul- appearance, 
lough was a prisoner among the Del- 



160 



THE CONSPIRACY. 



[Chap. TIL 



With so many causes to irritate their restless arid 
warlike spirit, it could not be supposed that the In- 
dians would long remain quiet. Accordingly, in the 
smnmer of the year 1761, Captain Campbell, then com- 
manding at Detroit, received information that a depu- 
tation of Senecas had come to the neighboring village 
of the Wyandots for the purpose of instigating the 
latter to destroy him and his garrison. 1 On farther 
inqiiiry, the plot proved to be general, and Niagara, 
Fort Pitt, and other posts, were to share the fate of 
Detroit, Campbell instantly despatched messengers to 
Sir Jeffrey Amherst, and the commanding officers of 
the different forts; and, by this timely discovery, the 
conspiracy was nipped in the bud. During the fol- 
lowing summer, 1762, another similar design was 
detected and suppressed. They proved but the pre- 
cursors of a tempest. Within two }-ears after the 
discovery of the first plot, a scheme was matured 



i MS. Minutes of a Council held 
by Deputies of the Six Nations, with 
the Wyandots, Ottawas, Ojibwas, 
and Pottawattamies, at the Wyandot 
town, near Detroit, July 3, 1761. 

Extract from a MS. Letter — Cap- 
tain Campbell, commanding at De- 
troit, to Major Walters, commanding 
at Niagara. 

" Detroit, June 17th, 1761, 
two o'clock in the morning. 
« Sir : 

" I had the favor of Yours, with 
General Amherst's Dispatches. 

" I have sent You an Express with 
a very Important piece of Intelli- 
gence I have had the good fortune 
to Discover. I have been Lately 
alarmed with Reports of the bad De- 
signs of the Indian Nations against 
this place and the English in Gen- 
eral ; 1 can now Liform You for cer- 
tain it Comes from the Six Nations ; 



and that they have Sent Belts of 
Wampum & Deputys to all the Na- 
tions, from Nova Scotia to the Illi- 
nois, to take up the Hatchet against 
the English, and have Employed the 
Messagues to send Belts of Wam- 
pum to the Northern Nations 

" Their project is as follows : the Six 
Nations — at least the Senecas are to 
Assemble at the head of French 
Creek, within five and twenty Leagues 
of Presqu'Isle, part of the Six Na- 
tions, the Delawares &. Shanese, are 
to Assemble on the Ohio, and all at 
the same time, about the latter End 
of this Month, to surprise Niagara 
& Fort Pitt, and Cut off the Com- 
munication Everywhere ; I hope this 
will Come time Enough to put You 
on Your Guard and to send to Os- 
wego, and all the Posts on that com- 
munication, they Expect to be Joined 
by the Nations that are Come from 
the North by Toronto." 



Chap. VII] 



PONTIAC. 



161 



greater in extent, deeper and more comprehensive in 
design ■ — such a one as was never, before or since, 
conceived or executed by a North American Indian. 
It was determined to attack ail the English forts upon 
the same day; then, having destroyed their garrisons, 
to turn upon the defenceless frontier, and ravage and 
lay waste the settlements, until, as many of the In- 
dians fondly believed, the English should all be driven 
into the sea, and the country restored to its primi- 
tive owners. 

It is difficult to determine which tribe was first to 
raise the cry of war. There were many who might 
have done so, for all the savages in the backwoods 
were ripe for an outbreak, and the movement seemed 
almost simultaneous. The Belawares and Senecas 
were the most incensed, and Kiashuta, chief of the 
latter, was perhaps foremost to apply the torch ; but, 
if this were the case, he touched fire to materials 
already on the point of igniting. It belonged to a 
greater chief than he to give method and order to 
what would else have been a wild burst of fury, and 
to convert desultory attacks into a formidable and 
protracted war. But for Pontiac, the whole might 
have ended in a few troublesome inroads upon the 
frontier, and a little whooping and yelling under the 
walls of Fort Pitt. 

Pontiac, as already mentioned, was principal chief 
of the Ottawas. The Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Potta- 
wattamies, had long been united in a loose kind of 
confederacy, of which he was the virtual head. Over 
those around him his authority was almost despotic, 
and his power extended far beyond the limits of the 
three united tribes. His influence was great among 
all the nations of the Illinois country; while, from 
21 N* 



162 



THE CONSPIRACY. 



[Chap. VII. 



the sources of the Ohio to those of the Mississippi, 
and, indeed, to the farthest boundaries of the wide- 
spread Algonquin race, his name was known and re- 
spected. 

The fact that Pontiac was born the son of a chief 
would in no degree account for the extent of his 
power; for, among Indians, many a chief's son sinks 
back into insignificance, while the offspring of a com- 
mon warrior may succeed to his place. Among all 
the wild tribes of the continent, personal merit is 
indispensable to gaming or preserving dignity. Cour- 
age, resolution, wisdom, address, and eloquence are 
sure passports to distinction. With all these Pontiac 
was preeminently endowed, and it was chiefly to them, 
urged to their highest activity by a vehement am- 
bition, that he owed his greatness. His intellect 
was strong and capacious. He possessed command- 
ing energy and force of mind, and in subtlety and 
craft could match the best of his wily race. But, 
though capable of acts of lofty magnanimity, he was a 
thorough savage, with a wider range of intellect than 
those around him, but sharing all their passions and 
prejudices, their fierceness and treachery. Yet his 
faults were the faults of his race ; and they cannot 
eclipse his nobler qualities, the great powers and 
heroic virtues of his mind. His memory is still cher- 
ished among the remnants of many Algonquin tribes, 
and the celebrated Tecumseh adopted him for his 
model, proving himself no unworthy imitator. 1 

i Drake, Life of Tecumseh, 138. government interpreter for the north- 
Several tribes, the Miamis, Sacs, era tribes, declared, on the faith of 
and others, have claimed connection Indian tradition, that he was born 
with the great chief ; but it is certain among the Ottawas of an Ojibwa 
that he was, by adoption at least, an mother, a circumstance which proved 
Ottawa. Henry Conner, formerly an advantage to him by increasing 



Chap. VII] GLOOMY PROSPECTS OP THE IXPIAXS. 



163 



Pontiac was new about fifty years old. Until Mar 
jor Eogers came into the country, he had been, from 
motives probably both of interest and inclination, a 
firm friend of the French. JNTot long before the French 
war broke out, he had saved the garrison of Detroit 
from the imminent peril of an attack from some of 
the discontented tribes of the north. During the war, 
he had fought on the side of France. It is said that 
he commanded the Ottawas at the memorable defeat 
of Braddock; but, at all events, he was treated with 
much honor by the French officers, and received espe- 
cial marks of esteem from the Marquis of Montcalm. 1 

"We have seen how, when the tide of affairs changed, 
the subtle and ambitious chief trimmed his bark to 
the current, and gave the hand of friendship to the 
English. That he was disappointed hi their treat- 
ment of him, and in all the hopes that he had formed 
from then* alliance, is sufficiently evident from one 
of his speeches. A new light soon began to dawn 
upon his untaught but powerful mind, and he saw 
the altered posture of affairs under its true aspect. 

It was a momentous and gloomy crisis for the In- 
dian race, for never before had they been exposed to 
such pressing and imminent danger. With the down- 
fall of Canada, the Indian tribes had sunk at once 
from their position of power and importance. Hith- 
erto the two rival European nations had kept each 
other in check upon the American continent, and the 

his influence over both tribes. An 1 The venerable Pierre Chouteau, 

Ojibwa Indian told the miter that of St. Louis, remembered to have 

some portion of his power was to be seen Pontiac, a few days before the 

ascribed to his being a chief of the death of the latter, attired in the com- 

Jflefai, a magical association among plete uniform of a French ofneer, 

the Indians of the lakes, in which which had been given him by the 

character he exerted an influence on Marquis of Montcalm not long before 

the superstition of his followers. the battle on the Plains of Abraham. 



164 



THE CONSPIRACY. 



[Chap. VII. 



Indian tribes had, in some measure, held the balance 
of power between them. To conciliate their good 
will and gain their alliance, to avoid offending them 
by injustice and encroachment, was the policy both 
of the French and English. But now the face of 
affairs was changed. The English had gained an un- 
disputed ascendency, and the Indians, no longer im- 
portant as allies, were treated as mere barbarians, 
who might be trampled upon with impunity. Aban- 
doned to their own feeble resources and divided 
strength, the tribes must fast recede, and dwindle 
away before the steady progress of the colonial power. 
Already their best hunting-grounds were invaded, and 
from the eastern ridges of the Alleghanies they might 
see, from far and near, the smoke of the settlers' clear- 
ings, rising in tall columns from the dark-green bosom 
of the forest. The doom of the race was sealed, and 
no human power could avert it; but they, in their 
ignorance, believed otherwise, and vainly thought that, 
by a desperate effort, they might yet uproot and over- 
throw the growing strength of their destroyers. 

It would be idle to suppose that the great mass 
of the Indians understood, in its full extent, the dan- 
ger which threatened their race. With them, the 
war was a mere outbreak of fury, and they turned 
against their enemies with as little reason or fore- 
cast as a panther when he leaps at the throat of 
the hunter. Goaded by wrongs and indignities, they 
struck for revenge, and relief from the evil of the 
moment. But the mind of Pontiac could embrace a 
wider and deeper view. The peril of the times was 
unfolded in its full extent before him, and he resolved 
to unite the tribes in one grand effort to avert it. 
He did not, like many of his people, entertain the 



Chap. VII.] 



DESIGNS OF PONTIAC. 



165 



absurd idea that the Indians, by their unaided strength, 
could drive the English into the sea. He adopted 
the only plan that was consistent with reason, that 
of restoring the French ascendency in the west, and 
once more opposing a check to British encroachment. 
With views like these, he lent a greedy ear to the 
plausible falsehoods of the Canadians, who assured 
him that the armies of King Louis were already ad- 
vancing to recover Canada, and that the French and 
their red brethren, fighting side by side, would drive 
the English dogs back within their own narrow limits. 

Revolving these thoughts, and remembering more- 
over that his own ambitious views might be advanced 
by the hostilities he meditated, Pontiac no longer hesi- 
tated. Revenge, ambition, and patriotism, wrought 
upon him alike, and he resolved on war. At the 
close of the year 1762, he sent out ambassadors to 
the different nations. They visited the country of 
the Ohio and its tributaries, passed northward to the 
region of the upper lakes, and the wild borders of 
the River Ottawa; and far southward towards the 
mouth of the Mississippi. 1 Bearing with them the 
war-belt of wampum, 2 broad and long, as the impor- 



1 MS. Letter — M. D'Abbadie to 
M. Neyon, 1764. 

2 Wampum was an article much 
in use among many tribes, not only 
for ornament, but for the graver pur- 
poses of councils, treaties, and em- 
bassies. In ancient times, it consisted' 
of small shells, or fragments of shells, 
rudely perforated, and strung togeth- 
er ; but more recently, it was manu- 
factured by the white men, from the 
inner portions of certain marine and 
fresh water shells. In shape, the 
grains or beads resembled small 
pieces of broken pipe-stem, and were 
of various sizes and colors, black, 



purple, and white. When used for 
ornament, they were arranged fanci- 
fully in necklaces, collars, and em- 
broidery ; but when employed for 
public purposes, they were disposed 
in a great variety of patterns and de- 
vices, which, to the minds of the In- 
dians, had all the significance of 
hieroglyphics. An Indian orator, at 
every clause of his speech, delivered 
a belt or string of wampum, varying- 
in size, according to the importance 
of what he had said, and, by its fig- 
ures and coloring, so arranged as to 
perpetuate the remembrance of his 
words. These belts were carefully 



166 



THE CONSPIRACY. 



[Chap. VII. 



tance of the message demanded; and the tomahawk 
stained red, in token of war; they went from camp 
to camp, and village to village. Wherever they ap- 
peared, the sachems and old men assembled, to hear 
the words of the great Pontiac. Then the head chief 
of the embassy flnng down the tomahawk on the 
ground before them, and holding the war-belt in his 
hand, delivered, with vehement gesture, word for word, 
the speech with which he was charged. It was heard 
every where with approbation ; the belt was accepted, 
the hatchet snatched up, and the assembled chiefs 
stood pledged to take part in the war. The blow 
was to be struck at a certain time in the month of 
May following, to be indicated by the changes of the 
moon. The tribes were to rise together, each destroy- 
ing the English garrison in its neighborhood, and 
then, with a general rush, the whole were to turn 
against the settlements of the frontier. 

The tribes, thus banded together against the Eng- 
lish, comprised, with a few unimportant exceptions, the 
whole Algonquin stock, to whom were united the Wy- 
andots, the Senecas, and several tribes of the lower 
Mississippi. The Senecas were the only members 



stored up like written documents, and 
it was generally the office of some 
old man to interpret their meaning. 

When a wampum belt was sent to 
summon the tribes to join in war, its 
color was always red or black, while 
the prevailing color of a peace-belt 
was white. Tobacco was sometimes 
used on such occasions as a substi- 
tute for wampum, since in their coun- 
cils the Indians are in the habit of 
constantly smoking, and tobacco is 
therefore taken as the emblem of de- 
liberation. With the tobacco or the 
belt of wampum, presents are not un- 
frequently sent to conciliate the good 



will of the tribe whose alliance is 
sought. In the summer of the year 
1846, Avhen the western bands of the 
Dahcotah were preparing to go in 
concert against their enemies the 
Crows, the chief who was at the head 
of the design, and in whose village 
the writer was an inmate, impov- 
erished himself by sending most of 
his horses as presents to the chiefs 
of the surrounding villages. On this 
occasion, tobacco was the token borne 
by the messengers, as wampum is not 
in use among the tribes of that re- 
gion. 



Chap. VII] DISSIMULATION OF THE INDIANS. 



167 



of the Iroquois confederacy who joined in the league, 
the rest being kept quiet by the influence of Sir 
William Johnson, whose utmost exertions, however, 
were barely sufficient to allay their irritation. 1 

While thus on the very eve of an outbreak, the 
Indians concealed their design with the deep dissimu- 
lation of their race. The warriors still lounged about 
the forts, with calm, impenetrable faces, begging as 
heretofore for tobacco, gunpowder, and whiskey. Now 
and then, some slight intimation of danger would 
startle the garrisons from their security, and an Eng- 
lish trader, coming in from the Indian villages, would 
report that, from their manner and behavior, he sus- 
pected them of mischievous designs. Some scoundrel 
half-breed would be heard boasting in his cups that 
before next summer he would have English hair to 
fringe his hunting-frock. On one occasion, the plot 
was nearly discovered. Early in March, 1763, En- 
sign Holmes, commanding at Fort Miami, was told 
by a friendly Indian, that the warriors in the neigh- 
boring village had lately received a war-belt, with a 
message urging them to destroy him and his garri- 
son, and that this they were preparing to do. Holmes 
called the Indians together, and boldly charged them 
with their design. They did as Indians on such oc- 
casions have often done, confessed their fault with 
much apparent contrition, laid the blame on a neigh- 
boring tribe, and professed eternal friendship to their 
brethren the English. Holmes writes to report his 
discovery to Major Gladwyn, who, in his turn, sends 
the information to Sir Jeffrey Amherst, expressing his 
opinion that there has been a general irritation among 



MS. Johnson Papers. 



168 



THE CONSPIRACY. 



[Chap. VII. 



the Indians, but that the affair will soon blow over, 
and that, in the neighborhood of his own post, the 
savages were perfectly tranquil. 1 Within cannon shot 
of the .deluded officer's palisades, was the village of 
Pontiac himself, the arch enemy of the English, and 
prime mover in the plot. 

With the approach of spring, the Indians, coming 
in from their wintering grounds, began to appear in 
small parties about the different forts ; but now they 
seldom entered them, encamping at a little distance 
in the woods. They were fast pushing their prepara- 
tions for the meditated blow, and waiting with stifled 
eagerness for the appointed hour. 



i MS. Speech of a Miami Chief 
to Ensign Holmes. MS. Letter — 
Holmes to Gladwyn, March 16, 1763. 
Gladwyn to Amherst, March 21, 1763. 

Extract from a MS. Letter — En- 
sign Holmes, commanding at Miamis, 
to Major Gladwyn : — 

" Fort Miamis, 
March 30th, 1763. 

" Since my Last Letter to You, 
wherein I Acquainted You of the 
Bloody Belt being, in this Village, I 
have made all the search I could about 



it, and have found it out to be True ; 
Whereon I Assembled all the Chiefs 
of this Nation, & after a long and 
troublesome Spell with them, I Ob- 
tained the Belt, with a Speech, as You 
will Receive Enclosed; This Affair 
is very timely Stopt, and I hope the 
News of a Peace will put a Stop to 
any further Troubles with these In- 
dians, who are the Principal Ones of 
Setting Mischief on Foot. I send 
you the Belt, with this Packet, which 
I hope You will Forward to the Gen- 
eral." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

INDIAN PREPARATION, 

I interrupt the progress of the narrative to glance 
for a moment at the Indians in their military capacity, 
and observe how far they were qualified to prosecute 
the formidable war into which they were about to 
plunge. 

A people living chiefly by the chase, and there- 
fore, of necessity, thinly scattered over a great space, 
divided into numerous tribes, held together by no 
strong principle of cohesion, and with no central 
government to combine their strength, could act 
with little efficiency against such an enemy as was 
now opposed to them. Loose and disjointed as a 
whole, the government even of individual tribes, and 
of their smallest separate communities, was too feeble 
to deserve the name. There were, it is true, chiefs 
whose office was in a manner hereditary; but their 
authority was wholly of a moral nature, and enforced 
by no compulsory law. Their province was to ad- 
vise, and not to command. Their influence, such as 
it was, is chiefly to be ascribed to the principle of 
hero-worship , natural to the Indian character, and to 
the reverence for age, which belongs to a state of 
society where a patriarchal element largely prevails. 
It was their office to declare war and make peace; 
but when war was declared, they had no power to 
22 o 



170 



INDIAN PREPARATION. [Chap. VIII. 



cany the declaration into effect. The warriors fonght 
if they chose to do so; but if, on the contrary, they 
preferred to remain quiet, no man could force them 
to lift the hatchet. The war-chief, whose part it was 
to lead them to battle, was a mere partisan, whom his 
bravery and exploits had led to distinction. If he 
thought proper, he sang his war-song and danced his 
war-dance, and as many of the young men as were 
disposed to follow him gathered around and enlisted 
themselves under him. Over these volunteers he had 
no legal authority, and they could desert him at any 
moment, with no other penalty than disgrace. When 
several war-parties, of different bands or tribes, were 
united in a common enterprise, their chiefs elected a 
leader, who was nominally to command the whole ; but 
unless this leader was a man of high distinction, and 
endowed with great mental power, his commands were 
disregarded, and his authority was a cipher. Among 
his followers was every latent element of discord, 
pride, jealousy, and ancient half-smothered feuds, ready 
at any moment to break out, and tear the whole 
asunder. His warriors would often desert in bodies; 
and many an Indian army, before reaching the ene- 
my's country, has been known to dwindle away until 
it was reduced to a mere scalping party. 

To twist a rope of sand would be as easy a task 
as to form a permanent and effective army of such 
materials. The wild love of freedom, and impatience 
of all control, which mark the Indian race, ren- 
der them utterly intolerant of military discipline. 
Partly from their individual character, and partly 
from this absence of subordination, spring results 
highly unfavorable to the efficiency of continued and 
extended military operation. Indian warriors, when 



Chap. VIII] THE INDIANS AS A MILITARY PEOPLE. 



171 



acting in large masses, are to the last degree way- 
ward, capricious, and unstable ; infirm of purpose as 
a mob of children, and devoid of providence and fore- 
sight. To provide supplies for a campaign forms no 
part of their system. Hence the blow must be struck 
at once, or not struck at all ; and to postpone victory 
is to insure defeat. It is when acting in small, de- 
tached parties, that the Indian warrior puts forth his 
energies, and displays his admirable address, endur- 
ance, and intrepidity. It is then that he becomes 
a truly formidable enemy. Fired with the hope of 
winning scalps, he is stanch as a bloodhound. No 
hardship can divert him from his purpose, and no 
danger subdue his patient and cautious courage. 

From their inveterate passion for war, the Indians 
are always prompt enough to engage in it; and on 
the present occasion, the prevailing irritation afforded 
ample assurance that they would not remain idle. 
"While there was little risk that they would capture 
any strong and well-defended fort, or carry any im- 
portant position, there was, on the other hand, every 
reason to apprehend wide-spread havoc, and a destruc- 
tive war of detail. That the war might be carried 
on with vigor and effect, it was the part of the Indian 
leaders to work upon the passions of their people, 
and keep alive the feeling of irritation ; to whet their 
native appetite for blood and glory, and cheer them 
on to the attack ; to guard against all that might 
quench their ardor, or abate' their fierceness; to avoid 
pitched battles ; never to fight except under advan- 
tage; and to avail themselves of all the aid which 
surprise, craft, and treachery could afford. The very 
circumstances which unfitted the Indians for continued 
and concentrated attack were, in another view, highly 



172 



INDIAN PREPARATION. 



[Chap. VIII. 



advantageous, by preventing the enemy from assail- 
ing them with vital effect. It was no easy task to 
penetrate tangled woods in search of a foe, alert and 
active as a lynx, who woidd seldom stand and fight, 
whose deadly shot and triumphant whoop were the 
first and often the last tokens of his presence, and 
who, at the approach of a hostile force, would vanish 
into the black recesses of forests and pine swamps, 
only to renew his attacks afresh with unabated ardor. 
There were no forts to capture, no magazines to de- 
stroy, and little property to seize upon. No species 
of warfare could be more perilous and harassing in 
its prosecution, or less satisfactory hi its results. 

The English colonies at this time were but ill 
fitted to bear the brunt of the impending war. The 
army which had conquered Canada was now broken 
up and dissolved ; the provincials were disbanded, and 
most of the regulars sent home. A few fragments 
of regiments, miserably wasted by war and sickness, 
were just arrived from the West Indies ; and of these, 
several were already ordered to England, to be dis- 
charged. There remained barely troops enough to 
furnish feeble garrisons for the various forts on the 
frontier and in the Indian country. 1 At the head of 
this dilapidated army was Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the 
able and resolute soldier who had achieved the re- 
duction of Canada. He was a man well fitted for 
the emergency ; cautious, bold, active, far-sighted, 
and endowed with a singular power of breathing 
his own energy and zeal into those who served un- 
der him. The command could not have been hi bet- 
ter hands ; and the results of the war, lamentable as 



i Mante, 485. 



Chap. VUL] 



THE PEACE OE PAEIS. 



173 



they were, would have been much more disastrous, 
but for his promptness and vigor, and, above all, his 
judicious selection of those to whom he confided the 
execution of his orders. 

While the war was on the eve of breaking out, an 
event occurred which had afterwards an important 
effect upon its progress — the signing of the treaty 
of peace at Paris, on the tenth of February, 1763. 1 
By this treaty France resigned her claims to the ter- 
ritories east of the Mississippi, and that great river 
now became the western boundary of the British co- 
lonial possessions. In portioning out her new acqui- 
sitions into separate governments, England left the 
valley of the Ohio and the adjacent regions as an 
Indian domain, and by the proclamation of the sev- 
enth of October folio wing, the intrusion of settlers 
upon these lands was strictly prohibited. 2 Could these 
just and necessary measures have been sooner adopted, 
it is probable that the Indian war might have been 
prevented, or, at all events, rendered less general and 
violent, for the treaty would have made it apparent 
that the French could never repossess themselves of 
Canada, and have proved the futility of every hope 
which the Indians entertained of assistance from that 
quarter, while, at the same time, the royal proclama- 
tion would have greatly tended to tranquillize their 
minds, by removing the chief cause of irritation. But 
the remedy came too late. While the sovereigns of 
France, England, and Spain, were signing the treaty 
at Paris, countless Indian warriors in the American 
forests were singing the war-song, and whetting their 
scalping-knives. 

1 Holmes, Annals, II. 258. 

2 See Proclamation, Gentleman's Magazine, XXXIII. 477. 

O* 



174 



INDIAN PREPARATION 



[Chap. VET. 



Throughout the western wilderness, in a hundred 
camps and villages, were celebrated the savage rites 
of war. Warriors, women, and children were alike 
eager and excited; magicians consulted their oracles, 
and prepared charms to insure success ; while the war- 
chief, his body painted black from head to foot, 
withdrawing from the people, concealed himself among 
rocks and caverns, or in the dark recesses of the forest. 
Here, fasting and praying, he calls day and night 
upon the Great Spirit, consulting his dreams, to draw 
from them auguries of good or evil ; and if, perchance, 
a vision of the great war-eagle seems to hover over 
him with expanded wings, he exults in the full con- 
viction of triumph. When a few days have elapsed, 
he emerges from his retreat, and the people discover 
him descending from the woods, and approaching their 
camp, black as a demon of war, and shrunken with 
fasting and vigil. They flock around and listen to 
his wild harangue. He calls on them to avenge the 
blood of their slaughtered relatives; he assures them 
that the Great Spirit is on their side, and that vic- 
tory is certain. With exulting cries they disperse to 
their wigwams, to array themselves in the savage dec- 
orations of the war-dress. An old man now passes 
through the camp, and invites the warriors to a feast 
in the name of the chief. They gather from all 
quarters to his wigwam, where they find him seated, 
no longer covered with black, but adorned with the 
startling and fantastic blazonry of the war-paint. 
Those who join in the feast pledge themselves, by so 
doing, to follow him against the enemy. The guests 
seat themselves on the ground, in a circle around the 
wigwam, and the flesh of dogs is placed in wooden 
dishes before them, while the chief, though goaded 



Chap. VEX] THE WAR-FEAST — THE WAR-DANCE. 175 

by the pangs of his long, unbroken fast, sits smoking 
his pipe with unmoved countenance, and takes no 
part in the feast. 

Night has now closed in, and the rough clearing 
is ulumined by the blaze of fires and burning pine 
knots, casting their deep red glare upon the dusky 
boughs of the tall surrounding pine-trees, and upon 
the wild multitude who, fluttering with feathers and 
bedaubed with paint, have gathered for the celebra- 
tion of the war-dance. A painted post is driven into 
the ground, and the crowd form a wide circle around it. 
The chief leaps into the vacant space, brandishing 
his hatchet as if rushing upon an enemy, and, in a 
loud, vehement tone, chants his own exploits and 
those of his ancestors, enacting the deeds which he 
describes, yelling the war-whoop, throwing himself 
into all the postures of actual fight, striking the post 
as if it were an enemy, and tearing the scalp from 
the head of the imaginary victim. Warrior after war- 
rior follows his example, until the whole assembly, as 
if fired with sudden frenzy, rush together into the 
ring, leaping, stamping, and whooping, brandishing 
knives and hatchets in the fire light, hacking and 
stabbing the air, and working themselves into the 
fury of battle, while at intervals they all break forth 
into a burst of ferocious yells, which sounds for miles 
away over the lonely, midnight forest. 

In the morning, the warriors prepare to depart. 
They leave the camp in single file, still decorated in 
all their finery of paint, feathers, and scalp-locks ; and 
as they enter the woods, the chief fires his gun, the 
warrior behind follows his example, and the discharges 
pass in slow succession from front to rear, the salute 
concluding with a general whoop. They encamp at no 



176 



INDIAN PREPARATION. 



[Chap. VIII. 



great distance from the village, and divest themselves 
of their much-valued ornaments, which are carried 
back by the women, who have followed them for this 
purpose. The warriors pursue their journey, clad in 
the rough attire of hard service, and move silently 
and stealthily through the forest towards the hapless 
garrison, or defenceless settlement, which they have 
marked as their prey. 

The woods were now filled with war-parties such 
as this, and soon the first tokens of the approaching 
tempest began to alarm the unhappy settlers of the 
frontier. At first, some trader or hunter, weak and 
emaciated, would come in from the forest, and relate 
that his companions had been butchered in the In- 
dian villages, and that he alone had escaped. Next 
succeeded vague and uncertain rumors of forts at- 
tacked and garrisons slaughtered; and soon after, a 
report gained ground that every post throughout the 
Indian country had been taken, and every soldier 
killed. Close upon these tidings came the enemy 
himself. The Indian war-parties broke out of the 
woods like gangs of wolves, murdering, burning, and 
laying waste, while hundreds of terror-stricken families, 
abandoning their homes, fled for refuge towards the 
older settlements, and all was misery and rum. 

Passing over, for the present, this portion of the 
war, we will penetrate at once into the heart of the 
Indian country, and observe those passages of the 
conflict which took place under the auspices of Pon- 
tiac himself — the siege of Detroit, and the capture 
of the interior posts and garrisons. 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE COUNCIL AT THE RIVER ECORCES. 

To begin the war was reserved by Pontiac as his own 
peculiar privilege. "With the first opening of spring 
his preparations were complete. His light-footed mes- 
sengers, with their wampum belts and gifts of tobacco, 
visited many a lonely hunting camp in the gloom of 
the northern woods, and called chiefs and warriors to 
attend the general meeting. The appointed spot was 
on the banks of the little River Ecorces, not far from 
Detroit. Thither went Pontiac himself, with his squaws 
and his children. Band after band came straggling in 
from every side, until the meadow was thickly dotted 
with their slender wigwams. 1 Here were idle warriors 
smoking and laughing in groups, or beguiling the lazy 
hours with gambling, with feasting, or with doubtful 
stories of their own martial exploits. Here were 
youthful gallants, bedizened with all the foppery of 
beads, feathers, and hawk's bells, but held as yet in 
light esteem, since they had slam no enemy, and taken 
no scalp. Here also were young damsels, radiant with 
bears' oil, ruddy with vermilion, and versed in all the 
arts of forest coquetry; shrivelled hags, with limbs of 
wire, and voices like those of screech-owls ; and troops 

1 Pontiac MS. See Appendix, C. 

23 



178 



THE COUNCIL. 



[Chap. IX. 



of naked children, with small, black, mischievous eyes, 
roaming along the outskirts of the woods. 

The great Roman historian observes of the ancient 
Germans, that when summoned to a public meeting, 
they would lag behind the appointed time in order to 
show their independence. The remark holds true, and 
perhaps with greater emphasis, of the American In- 
dians ; and thus it happened, that several days elapsed 
before the assembly was complete. In such a motley 
concourse of barbarians, where different bands and dif- 
ferent tribes were mustered on one common camping 
ground, it would need all the art of a prudent leader 
to prevent their dormant jealousies from starting into 
open strife. JSTo people are more prompt to quarrel, 
and none more prone, in the fierce excitement of the 
present, to forget the purpose of the future ; yet, 
through good fortune, or the wisdom of Pontiac, no 
rupture occurred ; and at length the last loiterer ap- 
peared, and farther delay was needless. 

The council took place on the twenty-seventh of 
April. On that morning, several old men, the heralds 
of the camp, passed to and fro among the lodges, call- 
ing the warriors, in a loud voice, to attend the meeting. 

In accordance with the summons, they came issuing 
from their cabins — the tall, naked figures of the wild 
Ojibwas, with quivers slung at their backs, and light 
war-clubs resting in the hollow of their arms; Otta- 
was, wrapped close in their gaudy blankets ; Wyan- 
dots, fluttering in painted shirts, their heads adorned 
with feathers, and their leggins garnished with bells. 
All were soon seated in a wide circle upon the grass, 
row within row, a grave and silent assembly. Each 
savage countenance seemed carved in wood, and none 
could have detected the deep and fiery passions hidden 



Chap. IX.] 



SPEECH OE^PONTIAC. 



179 



beneath that immovable exterior. Pipes with orna- 
mented stems were lighted, and passed from hand to 
hand. 

Then Pontiac rose, and walked forward into the 
midst of the council. According to Canadian tradi- 
tion, he was not above the middle height, though his 
muscular figure was cast in a mould of remarkable 
symmetry and vigor. His complexion was darker than 
is usual with his race, and his features, though by no 
means regular, had a bold and stem expression, while 
his habitual bearing was imperious and peremptory, 
like that of a man accustomed to sweep away all oppo- 
sition by the force of his impetuous will. His ordi- 
nary attire was that of the primitive savage — a scanty 
cincture girt about his loins, and his long, black hair 
flowing loosely at his back ; but on occasions like this, 
he was wont to appear as befitted his power and char- 
acter, and he stood before the council plumed and 
painted hi the fidl costume of war. 

Looking round upon his wild auditors, he began to 
speak, with fierce gesture, and loud, impassioned voice ; 
and at every pause, deep guttural ejaculations of assent 
and approval responded to his words. He inveighed 
against the arrogance, rapacity, and injustice of the 
English, and contrasted them with the French, whom 
they had driven from the soil. He declared that the 
British commandant had treated him with neglect and 
contempt ; that the soldiers of the garrison had foully 
abused the Indians ; and that one of them had struck 
a follower of his own. He represented the danger that 
would arise from the supremacy of the English. They 
had expelled the Trench, and now they only waited for 
a pretext to turn upon the Indians and destroy them. 
Then, holding out a broad belt of wampum, he told 



180 



THE COUNCIL. 



[Chap. IX. 



the council that he had received it from their great 
father the King of France, in token that he had heard 
the voice of his red children ; that his sleep was at an 
end; and that his great war-canoes would soon sail up 
the St. Lawrence, to win back Canada, and wreak ven- 
geance on his enemies. The Indians and their French 
brethren should fight once more side by side, as they 
had always fought ; they should strike the English as 
they had struck them many moons ago, when their 
great army marched down the Monongahela, and they 
had shot them from their ambush, like a flock of 
pigeons in the woods. 

Having roused in his warlike listeners their native 
thirst for blood and vengeance, he next addressed him- 
self to their superstition, and told the following tale. 
Its precise origin is not easy to determine. It is pos- 
sible that the Delaware prophet, mentioned in a former 
chapter, may have had some part in it; or it might 
have been the offspring of Pontiac's heated imagina- 
tion, during his period of fasting and dreaming. That 
he deliberately invented it for the sake of the effect it- 
would produce, is the least probable conclusion of all ; 
for it evidently proceeds from the superstitious mind of 
an Indian, brooding upon the evil days hi which his 
lot was cast, and turning for relief to the mysterious 
Author of his being. It is, at all events, a characteris- 
tic specimen of the Indian legendary tales, and, like 
many of them, bears an allegoric significance. Yet 
he who endeavors to interpret an Indian allegory 
through all its erratic windings and puerile inconsis- 
tencies, has undertaken no easy or enviable task. 

" A Delaware Indian," said Pontiac, " conceived an 
eager desire to learn wisdom from the Master of Life ; 
but, being ignorant where to find him, he had recourse 



Chap. IX.] ALLEGOEY OF THE DELAWARE. 181 

to fasting, dreaming, and magical incantations. By 
these means it was revealed to him, that by moving for- 
ward in a straight, nndeviating course, he wonld reach 
the abode of the Great Spirit. He told his purpose to 
no one, and having provided the equipments of a 
hunter, — gun, powder-horn, ammunition, and a kettle 
for preparing his food, — he set forth on his errand. 
For some time he journeyed on in high hope and confi- 
dence. On the evening of the eighth day, he stopped 
by the side of a brook at the edge of a small prairie, 
where he began to make ready his evening meal, when, 
looking up, he saw three large openings in the woods 
on the opposite side of the meadow, and three well- 
beaten paths which entered them. He was much sur- 
prised ; but his wonder increased when, after it had 
grown dark, the three paths were more clearly visible 
than ever. Remembering the important object of his 
journey, he could neither rest nor sleep ; and, leaving 
his fire, he crossed the meadow, and entered the largest 
of the three openings. He had advanced but a short 
distance into the forest, when a bright flame sprang out 
of the ground before him, and arrested his steps. In 
great amazement, he turned back, and entered the sec- 
ond path, where the same wonderful phenomenon again 
encountered him ; and now, in terror and bewilderment, 
yet still resolved to persevere, he pursued the last of 
the three paths. On this he journeyed a whole day 
without interruption, when at length, emerging from 
the forest, he saw before him a vast mountain, of 
dazzling whiteness. So precipitous was the ascent, 
that the Indian thought it hopeless to go farther, and 
looked around him in despair : at that moment, he saw, 
seated at some distance above, the figure of a beautiful 
w^oman arrayed in white, who arose as he looked upon 

p 



182 



THE COUNCIL. 



[Chap. IX. 



her, and thus accosted him : 6 How can you hope, en- 
cumbered as you are, to succeed in your design \ Go 
down to the foot of the mountain, throw away your 
gun, your ammunition, your provisions, and your cloth- 
ing ; wash yourself in the stream which flows there, 
and you will then be prepared to stand before the 
Master of Life.' The Indian obeyed, and again began 
to ascend among the rocks, while the woman, seehig 
him still discouraged, laughed at his faintness of heart, 
and told him that, if he wished for success, he must 
climb by the aid of one hand and one foot only. After 
great toil and suffering, he at length found himself at 
the summit. The woman had disappeared, and he was 
left alone. A rich and beautiful plain lay before him, 
and at a little distance he saw three great Tillages, far 
superior to the squalid dwellings of the Delawares. 
As he approached the largest, and stood hesitating 
whether he should enter, a man gorgeously attired 
stepped forth, and, taking him by the hand, welcomed 
him to the celestial abode. He then conducted him 
into the presence of the Great Spirit, where the Indian 
stood confounded at the unspeakable splendor which 
surrounded him. The Great Spirit bade him be seated, 
and thus addressed him : — 

" ; I am the Maker of heaven and earth, the trees, 
lakes, rivers, and all things else. I am the Maker of 
mankind; and because I love you, you must do my 
will. The land on which you live I have made for 
you, and not for others. Why do you suffer the white 
men to dwell among you? My children, you have for- 
gotten the customs and traditions of your forefathers. 
"Why do you not clothe yourselves in skins, as they did, 
and use the bows and arrows, and the stone-pointed 
lances, which they used? You have bought guns, 



Chap. IX.] 



ALLEGOEY OF THE DELAWARE. 



183 



knives, kettles, and blankets from the white men, 
until you can no longer do without them ; and what 
is worse, you have drunk the poison fire-water, which 
turns you into fools. Fling all these things away ; 
live as your wise forefathers lived before you. And as 
for these English, — these dogs dressed in red, who have 
come to rob you of your hunting-grounds, and drive 
away the game, — you must lift the hatchet against 
them. Wipe them from the face of the earth, and then 
you will win my favor back again, and once more be 
happy and prosperous. The children of your great 
father, the King of France, are not like the English. 
Never forget that they are your brethren. They are 
very dear to me, for they love the red men, and under- 
stand the true mode of worshipping me.' " 

The Great Spirit next instructed his hearer in va- 
rious precepts of morality and religion, such as the 
prohibition to marry more than one wife, and a warn- 
ing against the practice of magic, which is worship- 
ping the devil. A prayer, embodying the substance 
of all that he had heard, was then presented to the 
Delaware. It was cut in hieroglyphics upon a wooden 
stick, after the custom of his people, and he was 
directed to send copies of it to all the Indian vil- 
lages. 1 

The adventurer now departed, and, returning to the 
earth, reported all the wonders he had seen in the 
celestial regions. 

Such was the tale told by Pontiac to the council; 
and it is worthy of notice, that not he alone, but 

l Pontiac MS.— M'Dougal MSS. writes on the authority of Canadians, 

M'Dougal states that he derived his some of whom were present at the 

information from an Indian. The au- council, 
thor of the Pontiac MS. probably 



184 



THE COUNCIL. 



[Chap. IX. 



many of the greatest men who have arisen among the 
Indians, have been opponents of civilization, and 
stanch advocates of primitive barbarism. Red Jacket 
and Tecnmseh would gladly have brought back their 
people to the wild simplicity of their original con- 
dition. There is nothing progressive in the rigid, in- 
flexible nature of an Indian. He will not open his 
mind to the idea of improvement, and nearly every 
change that has been forced upon him has been a 
change for the worse. 

Many other speeches were doubtless made in the 
council, but no record of them has been preserved. 
All present were eager to attack the British fort, and 
Pontiac told them, in conclusion, that on the second 
of May he would gain admittance with a party of his 
warriors, on pretence of dancing the calumet dance 
before the garrison ; that they would take note of 
the strength of the fortification; and, this information, 
gained, he would summon another council to determine 
the mode of attack. 

The assembly now dissolved, and all the evening the 
women were employed in loading the canoes, which 
were drawn up on the bank of the stream. The en- 
campments broke up at so early an hour, that when 
the sun rose, the savage swarm had melted away; the 
secluded scene was restored to its wonted silence and 
solitude, and nothing remained but the slender frame- 
work of several hundred cabins, with fragments of 
broken utensils, pieces of cloth, and scraps of hide, 
scattered over the trampled grass, while the moulder- 
ing embers of numberless fires mingled their dark 
smoke with the white mist which rose from the little 
river. 

Every spring, after the winter hunt was over, the 



Chap. IX.] 



THE CALUMET DANCE. 



185 



Indians were accustomed to return to their villages, 
or permanent encampments, in the vicinity of Detroit ; 
and, accordingly, after the council had broken up, 
they made their appearance as usual about the fort. 
On the first of May, Pontiac came to the gate with 
forty men of the Ottawa tribe, and asked permission 
to enter and dance the calumet dance, before the 
officers of the garrison. After some hesitation, he was 
admitted; and proceeding to the corner of the street, 
where stood the house of the commandant, Major 
Gladwyn, he and thirty of his warriors began their 
dance, each recounting his own valiant exploits, and 
boasting himself the bravest of mankind. The officers 
and men gathered around them; while, in the mean 
time, the remaining ten of the Ottawas strolled about 
the fort, observing every thing it contained. When 
the dance was over, they all quietly withdrew, not a 
suspicion of their sinister design having arisen in the 
minds of the English. 1 

After a few days had elapsed, Pontiac' s messengers 
again passed among the Indian cabins, calling the 
principal chiefs to another council, in the Pottawatta- 
mie village. Here there was a large structure of 
bark, erected for the public use on occasions like the 
present. A hundred chiefs were seated around this 
dusky council-house, the fire in the centre shedding 
its fitful light upon their dark, naked forms, while 
the sacred pipe passed from hand to hand. To 
prevent interruption, Pontiac had stationed young 
men, as sentinels, near the house. He once more ad- 
dressed the chiefs, inciting them to hostility against 
the English, and concluding by the proposal of his 



24 



i Pontiac MS. 



186 



THE COUNCIL. 



[Chap IX, 



plan for destroying Detroit. It was as follows: Pon- 
tiac would demand a council with the commandant 
concerning matters of great importance; and on this 
pretext he flattered himself that he and his princi- 
pal chiefs would gain ready admittance within the 
fort. They were all to carry weapons concealed be- 
neath their blankets. While in the act of addressing 
the commandant in the council-room, Pontiac was to 
make a certain signal, upon which the chiefs were to 
raise the war-whoop, rush upon the officers present, 
and strike them down. The other Indians, waiting 
meanwhile at the gate, or loitering among the houses, 
on hearing the yells and firing within the building, 
were to assail the astonished and half-armed soldiers; 
and thus Detroit would fall an easy prey. 

In opening this plan of treachery, Pontiac spoke 
rather as a counsellor than as a commander. Haughty 
as he was, he had too much sagacity to wound the 
pride of a body of men over whom he had no other 
control than that derived from his personal character 
and influence. No one was hardy enough to venture 
opposition to the proposal of their great leader. His 
plan was eagerly adopted. Deep, hoarse ejaculations 
of applause echoed his speech; and, gathering their 
blankets around them, the chiefs withdrew to their 
respective villages, to prepare for the destruction of 
the unhappy little garrison. 



CHAPTER X. 



DETROIT. 



To the credulity of mankind each great calamity 
has its dire prognostics. Signs and portents in the 
heavens, the vision of an Indian bow, and the figure 
of a scalp imprinted on the disk of the moon, warned 
the New England Puritans of impending war. The 
apparitions passed away, and Philip of Mount Hope 
burst from the forest with his Narragansett warriors. 
In October, 1762, thick clouds of inky blackness 
gathered above the fort and settlement of Detroit. 
The river darkened beneath the awful shadows, and 
the forest was wrapped hi double gloom. Drops of 
rain began to fall, of strong, sulphurous odor, and so 
deeply colored that the people, it is said, collected and 
used them for the purpose of writing. 1 A prominent 
literary and philosophical journal seeks to explain this 
strange phenomenon on some principle of physical 
science ; but the simple Canadians held a different 
faith. Throughout the winter, the shower of black 
rain was the foremost topic of their fireside talk ; and 
dreary forebodings of evil disturbed the breast of 
many a timorous matron. 

La Motte Cadillac was the founder of Detroit. In 



i Carver, Travels, 153. Gent. Mag. XXXIV. 408. 



168 



DETROIT. 



[Chap. X. 



the year 1701, he planted the little military colony, 
vrhich time has transmuted into a thriving American 
city. 1 At an earlier date, some feeble efforts had been 
made to secure the possession of this important pass ; 
and when La Hontan visited the lakes, a small post, 
called Fort St. Joseph, was standing near the present 
site of Fort Gratiot. At about this time, the wander- 
ing Jesuits made frequent sojourns upon the borders of 
the Detroit, and baptized the savage children whom 
they found there. 

Fort St. Joseph was abandoned in the year 1688. 
The establishment of Cadillac was destined to a better 
fate, and soon rose to disthiguished importance among 
the western outposts of Canada. Indeed, the site was 
formed by nature for prosperity ; and a bad government 
and a tliriftless people could not prevent the increase 
of the colony. At the close of the French war, as 
Major Rogers tells us, the place contained twenty-five 
hundred inhabitants. 2 The centre of the settlement 
was the fortified town, currently called the Fort, to 
distinguish it from the straggling dwellings along the 
river banks. It stood on the western margin of the 
river, covering a small part of the ground now oc- 
cupied by the city of Detroit, and contained about a 
hundred houses, compactly pressed together, and sur- 
rounded by a palisade. Both above and below the fort, 
the banks of the stream were lined on both sides with 
small Canadian dwellings, extending at various inter- 
vals for nearly eight miles. Each had its garden and 
its orchard, and each was enclosed by a fence of 
rounded pickets. To the soldier or the trader, fresh 
from the harsh scenery and ambushed perils of the 



i Memorial of La !Motte Cadillac. 2 B,ogers, Account of North Amer- 
See Schoolcraft, Oneota, 407. ica, 168. 



Chap. X.] 



ITS ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 



189 



surrounding wilds, the secluded settlement was wel- 
come as an oasis in the desert. 

The Canadian is usually a happy man. Life sits 
lightly upon him ; he laughs at its hardships, and soon 
forgets its sorrows. A lover of roving and adventure, 
of the frolic and the dance, he is little troubled with 
thoughts of the past or the future, and little plagued 
with avarice or ambition. At Detroit, all his propen- 
sities found ample scope. Aloof from the world, the 
simple colonists shared none of its pleasures and ex- 
citements, and were free from many of its cares. Nor 
were luxuries wanting which civilization might have 
envied them. The forests teemed with game, the 
marshes with wild fowl, and the rivers with fish. The 
apples and pears of the old Canadian orchards are 
even to this day held in esteem. The poorer inhab- 
itants made wine from the fruit of the wild grape, 
which grew profusely in the woods, while the wealthier 
class procured a better quality from Montreal, in ex- 
change for the canoe loads of furs which they sent 
down with every year. Here, as elsewhere in Canada, 
the long winter was a season of social enjoyment ; and 
when, in summer and autumn, the traders and voy- 
ageurs, the coureurs des bois, and half-breeds, gathered 
from the distant forests of the north-west, the whole 
settlement was alive with frolic gayety, with dancing 
and feasting, drinking, gaming, and carousing. 

Within the limits of the settlement were three large 
Indian villages. On the western shore, a little below 
the fort, were the lodges of the Pottawattamies ; nearly 
opposite, on the eastern side, was the village of the 
Wyandots ; and on the same side, two miles higher up, 
Pontiac's band of Ottawas had fixed their abode. The 
settlers had always maintained the best terms with 



190 



DETROIT. 



[Chap. X. 



their savage neighbors. In truth, there was much 
congeniality between the red man and the Canadian. 
Their harmony was seldom broken ; and among the 
woods and wilds of the northern lakes roamed many 
a lawless half-breed, the mongrel offspring of inter- 
marriages between the colonists of Detroit and the 
Indian squaws. 

We have already seen how, in an evil hour for the 
Canadians, a party of British troops took possession of 
Detroit, towards the close of the year 1760. The Brit- 
ish garrison, consisting partly of regulars and partly of 
provincial rangers, was now quartered in a well-built 
range of barracks within the town or fort. The latter, 
as already mentioned, contained about a hundred small 
houses. Its form was nearly square, and the palisade 
which surrounded it was about twenty-five feet high. 
At each corner was a wooden bastion, and a block- 
house was erected over each gateway. The houses 
were small, chiefly built of wood, and roofed with bark 
or a thatch of straw. The streets also were extremely 
narrow, though a wide passage way, known as the 
chemin du rpnde, surrounded the town between the 
houses and the palisade. Besides the barracks, the 
only public buildings were a council-house and a rude 
little church. 

The garrison consisted of a hundred and twenty 
soldiers, with about forty fur- traders and engages ; 
but the latter, as well as the peaceful Canadian in- 
habitants of the place, could little be trusted, in the 
event of an Indian outbreak. Two small armed 
schooners, the Beaver and the Gladwyn, lay anchored 
in the stream, and several light pieces of artillery 
were mounted in the bastions. 

Such was Detroit — a place whose defences could 



Chap.X.] PONTIAC — HIS AMBITION — HIS PATRIOTISM. 191 

have opposed no resistance to a civilized enemy; and 
yet, situated as it was, far removed from the hope of 
speedy succor, it could only rely, in the terrible strug- 
gles that awaited it, upon its own slight strength and 
feeble resources. 1 

Standing on the water bastion of Detroit, the land- 
scape that presented itself might well remain impressed 
through life upon the memory. The river, about half 
a mile wide, almost washed the foot of the stockade ; 
and either bank was lined with the white Canadian 
cottages. The joyous sparkling of the bright blue 
water; the green luxuriance of 'the woods; the white 
dwellings, looking out from the foliage; and in the 
distance, the Indian wigwams curling their smoke 
against the sky, — all were mingled in one great 
scene of wild and rural beauty. 

Pontiac, the Satan of this forest paradise, was ac- 
customed to spend the early part of the summer upon 
a small island at the opening of the Lake St. Clair, 
hidden from view by the high woods that covered 
the intervening Isle an Cochon. 2 " The king and 
lord of all this country," as Rogers calls him, lived 
in no royal state. His cabin was a small, oven-shaped 
structure of bark and rushes. Here he dwelt with 
his squaws and children; and here, doubtless, he might 
often have been seen, carelessly reclining his naked 
form on a rush mat, or a bear-skin, like any ordinary 
warrior. We may fancy the current of his thoughts, 
the uncurbed passions swelling in his powerful soul, 

1 Croghan, Journal. Rogers, Ac- town of Detroit, was erected at a 

count of North America, 168. Va- date subsequent to the period of this 

rious MS. Journals, Letters, and history. 

Plans have also been consulted. The 2 Tradition, communicated to H. 
regular fortification, which, within the R. Schoolcraft, Esq., by Henry Con- 
recollection of many now living, cov- ner, formerly Indian interpreter at 
ered the ground in the rear of the old Detroit. 



192 



DETROIT. 



[Chap. X. 



as he revolved the treacheries which, to his savage 
mind, seemed fair and honorable. At one moment, 
his fierce heart would burn with the anticipation of 
vengeance on the detested English; at another, he 
would meditate how he best might turn the approach- 
ing tumults to the furtherance of his own ambitious 
schemes. Yet we may believe that Pontiac was not 
a stranger to the high emotion of the patriot hero, 
the champion not merely of his nation's rights, but 
of the very existence of his race. He did not 
dream how desperate a game he was about to play. 
He hourly flattered himself with the futile hope of 
aid from France. In his ignorance, he thought that 
the British colonies must give way before the rush 
of his savage warriors; when, in truth, all the com- 
bined tribes of the forest might have chafed in vain 
rage against the rock-like strength of the Anglo- 
Saxon. 

Looking across an intervening arm of the river, 
Pontiac could see on its eastern bank the numerous 
lodges of his Ottawa tribesmen, half hidden among 
the ragged growth of trees and bushes. On the 
afternoon of the fifth of May, a Canadian woman, 
the wife of St. Aubin, one of the principal settlers, 
crossed over from the western side, and visited the 
Ottawa village, to obtain from the Indians a supply 
of maple sugar and venison. She was surprised at 
finding several of the warriors engaged in filing off 
the muzzles of their guns, so as to reduce them, stock 
and all, to the length of about a yard. Ee turning 
home in the evening, she mentioned what she had 
seen to several of her neighbors. Upon this, one of 
them, the blacksmith of the village, remarked that 
many of the Indians had lately visited his shop, and 



Chap. X.] 



THE PLOT REVEALED. 



193 



attempted to borrow files and saws for a purpose which 
they would not explain. 1 These circumstances excited 
the suspicion of the experienced Canadians. Doubt- 
less there were many hi the settlement who might, 
had they chosen, have revealed the plot ; but it is no 
less certain that the more numerous and respectable 
class in the little community had too deep an inter- 
est in the preservation of peace to countenance the 
designs of Pontiac. M. Gouin, an old and wealthy 
settler, went to the commandant, and conjured him to 
stand upon his guard ■ but Gladwyn, a man of fear- 
less temper, gave no heed to the friendly advice." 2 
In the Pottawattamie village lived an Oiibwa girl, 

o JO 7 

who, if there be truth in tradition, coidd boast a 
larger share of beauty than is common in the wig- 
wam. She had attracted the eye of Gladwyn. He 
had formed a connection with her, and she had be- 
come much attached to him. On the afternoon of 
the sixth, Catharine — for so the officers called her — 
came to the fort, and repaired to Gladwyn' s quarters, 
bringing with her a pair of elk-skin moccasons, orna- 
mented with porcupine work, which he had requested 
her to make. There was something imusual in her 
look and manner. Her face was sad and downcast. 
She said little, and soon left the room; but the sen- 
tinel at the door saw her still lino-erin^ at the street 
corner, though the hour for closing the gates was 
nearly come. At length she attracted the notice of 
Gladwyn himself; and calling her to him, he pressed 
her to declare what was weighing upon her mind. 
Still she remained for a long time silent, and it was 



1 St Aubin's Account, MS. 

2 Gouin" s Account, 31 S. 

25 



See Appendix, C. 

Q 



194 



DETROIT. 



[Chap. X. 



only after much urgency and many promises not to 
betray her, that she revealed her momentous secret. 

To-morrow, she said, Pontiac will come to the fort 
with sixty of his chiefs. Each will be armed with 
a gun, cut short, and hidden under his blanket. 
Pontiac will demand to hold a council ; and after he 
has delivered his speech, he will offer a peace-belt of 
wampum, holding it in a reversed position. This will 
be the signal of attack. The chiefs will spring up 
and fire upon the officers, and the Indians in the 
street will fall upon the garrison. Every Englishman 
will be lolled, but not the scalp of a single French- 
man will be touched. 1 

Gladwyn was an officer of signal courage and ad- 
dress. He thanked his faithful mistress, and, promis- 
ing a rich reward, told her to go back to her village, 
that no suspicion might be kindled against her. Then, 
calling his subordinates together, he imparted what 
he had heard. The defences of the place were feeble 
and extensive, and the garrison by far too weak to 
repel a general assault. The force of the Indians at 
this time is variously estimated at from six hundred 
to two thousand ; and the commandant greatly feared 
that some wild impulse might precipitate their plan, 
and that they would storm the fort before the morn- 
ing. Every preparation was made to meet the sudden 
emergency. Half the garrison were ordered under 
arms, and all the officers prepared to spend the night 
upon the ramparts. 

" It rained all clay," writes the chronicler, " but 
cleared up towards evening, and there was a very 

i Letter to the writer from H. R. interpreter, Henry Conner. See, also, 
Schoolcraft, Esq., containing the tra- Carver, Travels, ] 55, (Lond. 1778.) 
ditional account from the lips of the 



Chap. X.] 



A NIGHT OF ANXIETY, 



195 



fair sunset." Perhaps it was such, an one as even 
now, when all else is changed, may still be seen at 
times from the eastern shore of the Detroit. A canopy 
of clouds is spread across the sky, drawn up from 
the horizon like a curtain, as if to reveal the glory 
of the west, where lies a transparent sea of liquid 
amber immeasurably deep. The sun has set ; the last 
glimpse of his burning disk has vanished behind the 
forest ; but where he sank, the sky glows like a con- 
flagration, and still, from his retreat, he bathes heaven 
and earth with celestial coloring. The edges of the 
cloudy curtain are resplendent with gold, and its dark 
blue drapery is touched with blood-red stains by the 
floods of fiery radiance. The forests and the shores 
melt together in rich and shadowy purple, and the 
waters reflect the splendor of the heavens. Gazing on 
the gorgeous sublimity of earth and sky, man may 
forget his vexed and perturbed humanity. Goaded by 
passions, racked by vain desires, tossed on the tumul- 
tuous sea of earthly troubles, amid doubt and disap- 
pointment, pain and care, he awakens to new hope as 
he beholds the glory of declining day, and rises in 
serene strength to meet that majestic smile of God. 

The light departed, and the colors faded away. 
Only a dusky redness lingered in the west, and the 
darkening earth seemed her dull self again. Then 
night descended, heavy and black, on the fierce In- 
dians and the sleepless English. From sunset till 
dawn, an anxious watch was kept from the slender 
palisades of Detroit. The soldiers were still ignorant 
of the danger, and the sentinels did not know why 
their numbers were doubled, or why, with such un- 
wonted vigilance, their officers visited their posts. 
Again and again Gladwyn mounted his wooden ram- 



196 



DETROIT. 



[Chap. X. 



parts and looked forth into the gloom. There seemed 
nothing but repose and peace in the soft, moist air 
of the warm spring evening, with the piping of frogs 
along the river bank, just roused from their torpor 
by the genial influence of May. But, at intervals, as 
the night wind swept across the bastion, it bore sounds 
of fearful portent to the ear, the sullen booming of 
the Indian drum and the wild chorus of quavering 
yells, as the warriors, around their distant camp-fires, 
danced the war-dance, in preparation for the mor- 
row's work. 1 



i Maxwell's Account, MS. See Appendix, C. 



CHAPTER XI. 

TREACHERY OF PONTIAC. 

The night passed without alarm. The sun rose 
upon fresh fields and newly budding woods, and 
scarcely had the morning mists dissolved, when the 
garrison could see a fleet of birch canoes crossing the 
river from the eastern shore, within range of can- 
non shot above the fort. Only two or three warriors 
appeared in each, but all moved slowly, and seemed 
deeply laden. In truth, they were full of savages, 
lying flat on their faces, that their numbers might not 
excite the suspicion of the English. 1 

At an early hour, the open common behind the fort 
was thronged with squaws, children, and warriors, 
some naked, and others fantastically arrayed in their 
barbarous finery. All seemed restless and uneasy, 
moving hither and thither, in apparent preparation for 
a general game of ball. Many tall warriors, wrapped 
in their blankets, were seen stalking towards the fort, 
and casting malignant furtive glances upward at the 
palisades. Then, with an air of assumed indifference, 
they would move towards the gate. They were all 
admitted ; for Gladwyn, who in this instance, at least, 
showed some knowledge of Indian character, chose to 
convince his crafty foe that, though their plot was de- 
tected, their hostility was despised. 2 



1 Meloche's Account, MS. 



2 Perm. Gaz. No. 1808. 



198 



TREACHERY OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XL 



The whole garrison was ordered under aims. Ster- 
ling, and the other English fur- traders, closed their 
storehouses and armed their men, and all in cool con- 
fidence stood waiting the result. 

Meanwhile, Pontiac, who had crossed with the canoes 
from the eastern shore, was approaching along the river 
road, at the head of his sixty chiefs, all gravely march- 
ing in Indian file. A Canadian settler, named Beaufait, 
had been that morning to the fort. He was now re- 
turning homewards, and as he reached the bridge 
which led over the stream then called Parent's Creek, 
he saw the chiefs in the act of crossing from the farther 
bank. He stood aside to give them room. As the last 
Indian passed, Beaufait recognized him as an old friend 
and associate. The savage greeted him with the usual 
ejaculation, opened for an instant the folds of his 
blanket, disclosed the hidden gun, and, with an em- 
phatic gesture towards the fort, indicated the ferocious 
purpose to which he meant to apply it. 1 

At ten o'clock, the great war-chief, with his treach- 
erous followers, reached the fort, and the gateway was 
thronged with their savage faces. All were wrapped 
to the throat in colored blankets. Some were crested 
with hawk, eagle, or raven plumes ; others had shaved 
their heads, leaving only the fluttering scalp-lock on 
the crown ; while others, again, w T ore their long, black 
hair flowing loosely at their backs, or wildly hanging 
about their brows like a lion's mane. Their bold 
yet crafty features, their cheeks besmeared with ochre 
and vermilion, white lead and soot, their keen, deep- 
set eyes gleaming in their sockets, like those of rat- 
tlesnakes, gave them an aspect grim, uncouth, and 



1 This incident was related, by See Cass, Discourse before the Mich- 
the son of Beaufait, to General Cass, igan Historical Society, 30. 



Chap. XI.] 



THE PLOT DEFEATED. 



199 



horrible. For the most part, they were tall, strong 
men, and all had a gait and bearing of peculiar 
stateliness. 

As Pontiac entered, it is said that he started, and 
that a deep ejaculation half escaped from his broad 
chest. Well might his stoicism fail, for at a glance he 
read the ruin of his plot. On either hand, within the 
gateway, stood ranks of soldiers and hedges of glitter- 
ing steel. The swarthy, half-wild engages of the fur- 
traders, armed to the teeth, stood in groups at the 
street corners, and the measured tap of a drum fell 
ominously on the ear. Soon regaining his composure, 
Pontiac strode forward into the narrow street, and his 
chiefs filed after him in silence, while the scared faces 
of women and children looked out from the windows 
as they passed. Their rigid muscles betrayed no sign 
of emotion • yet, looking closely, one might have seen 
their small eyes glance from side to side with restless 
scrutiny. 

Traversing the entire width of the little town, they 
reached the door of the council-house, a large build- 
ing standing near the margin of the river. Entering, 
they saw Gladwyn, with several of his officers, seated 
in readiness to receive them, and the observant chiefs 
did not fail to remark that every Englishman wore a 
sword at his side, and a pair of pistols in his belt. 
The conspirators eyed each other with uneasy glances. 
" Why," demanded Pontiac, " do I see so many of my 
father's young men standing in the street with their 
guns % " Gladwyn replied through his interpreter, La 
Butte, that he had ordered the soldiers under arms for 
the sake of exercise and discipline. With much delay 
and many signs of distrust, the chiefs at length sat 
down on the mats prepared for them; and after the 



200 



TREACHERY OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XL 



customary pause. Pontiac rose to speak. Holding in 
his hand the wampum belt which was to have given 
the fatal signal, he addressed the commandant, pro- 
fessing strong attachment to the English, and declar- 
ing, hi Indian phrase, that he had come to smoke 
the pipe of peace, and brighten the chain of friend- 
ship. The officers watched him keenly as he uttered 
these hollow words, fearing lest, though conscious that 
his designs were suspected, he might still attempt to 
accomplish them. And once, it is said, he raised the 
wampum belt as if about to give the signal of attack. 
But at that instant, Gladwyn signed slightly with his 
hand. The sudden clash of arms sounded from the 
passage without, and a drum rolling the charge filled 
the council-room with its stunning din. At this. 
Pontiac stood like one confounded. Some writers 
will have it. that Gladwyn, rising from his seat, drew 
the chief's blanket aside, exposed the hidden gim, 
and sternly rebuked him for his treachery. But 
the commandant wished only to prevent the consum- 
mation of the plot, without bringing on an oj^en rup- 
ture. His own letters affirm that he and his officers 
remained seated as before. Pontiac. seeing his un- 
ruffled brow and his calm eye fixed steadfastly upon 
him. knew not what to think, and soon sat down in 
amazement and perplexity. Another pause ensued, 
and Gladwyn commenced a brief reply. He assured 
the chiefs that friendship and protection should be 
extended towards them as long as they continued to 
deserve it, but threatened ample vengeance for the first 
act of aggression. The council then broke up ; but 
before leaving the room, Pontiac told the officers that 
he would return in a few days, with his squaws and 
children, for he wished that they should all shake 



Chap. XL] THE CHIEFS ALLOWED TO ESCAPE. 201 

hands with, their fathers the English. To this new 
piece of treachery Gladwyn deigned no reply. The 
gates of the fort, which had been closed during the 
conference, were again flung open, and the baffled 
savages were suffered to depart, rejoiced, no doubt, to 
breathe once more the free air of the open fields. 1 

Gladwyn has been censured, and perhaps with jus- 
tice, for not detaining the chiefs as hostages for the 
good conduct of their followers. An entrapped wolf 
meets no quarter from the huntsman ; and a savage, 
caught in his treachery, has no claim to forbearance. 
Perhaps the commandant feared lest, should he ar- 
rest the chiefs when gathered at a public council, 
and guiltless as yet of open violence, the act might 
be interpreted as cowardly and dishonorable. He 
was ignorant, moreover, of the true nature of the 
plot. In his view, the whole affair was one of those 
impulsive outbreaks so common among Indians, and 
he trusted that, could an immediate rupture be 
averted, the threatening clouds would soon blow over. 

Here, and elsewhere, the conduct of Pontiac is 



i Carver, Travels, 159, (London, 
1778.) M'Kenney, Tour to the 
Lakes, 130. Cass, Discourse, 32. 
Penn. Gaz. Nos. 1807, 1808. Pon- 
tiac MS. M'Dougal, MSS. Gouin's 
Account, MS. Meloche's Account, 
MS. St. Aubin's Account, MS. 

Extract from a MS. Letter — Ma- 
jor Gladwyn to Sir J. Amherst. 

" Detroit, May 14th 1763. 

"Sir: 

" On the First Instant, Pontiac, 
the Chief of the Ottawa Nation, 
came here with about Fifty of his 
Men, (forty, Pontiac MS.,) and told 
me that in a few days, when the rest 
of his Nation came in, he Intended 
to Pay me a Formal Visit. The 7th 
he came, but I was luckily Informed, 

26 



the Night before, that he was coming 
with an Intention to Surprize Us ; 
Upon which I took such Precautions 
that when they Entered the Fort, 
(tho' they were, by the best Accounts, 
about Three Hundred, and Armed 
with Knives, Tomyhawks, and a 
great many with Guns cut short, 
and hid under their Blankets,) they 
were so much surprized to see our 
Disposition, that they would scarcely 
sit down to Council: However in 
about Half an hour, after they saw 
their Designs were Discovered, they 
Sat Down, and Pontiac made a 
speech which I Answered calmly, 
without Intimating my suspicion of 
their Intentions, and after receiving 
some Trifling Presents, they went 
away to their Camp." 



202 



TREACHERY OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XI. 



marked with the blackest treachery ; and one cannot 
but lament that a nature so brave, so commanding, 
so magnanimous, should be stained with the odious 
vice of cowards and traitors. He could govern, with 
almost despotic sway, a race unruly as the winds. 
In generous thought and deed, he rivalled the heroes 
of ancient story, and craft and cunning might well 
seem alien to a mind like his. Yet Pontiac was a 
thorough savage, and in him stand forth, in strongest 
light and shadow, the native faults and virtues of 
the Indian race. All children, says Sir Walter 
Scott, are naturally liars ; and truth and honor are 
developments of later education. Barbarism is to 
civilization what childhood is to maturity, and all 
savages, whatever may be their country, their color, 
or their lineage, are prone to treachery and deceit. 
The barbarous ancestors of our own frank and manly 
race are no less obnoxious to the charge than those 
of the cat-like Bengalee ; for in this childhood of 
society, brave men and cowards are treacherous alike. 

The Indian differs widely from the European in 
his notion of military virtue. In his view, artifice 
is wisdom, and he honors the skill that can circum- 
vent, no less than the valor that can subdue, an 
adversary. The object of war, he argues, is to de- 
stroy the enemy. To accomplish this end, all means 
are honorable ; and it is folly, not bravery, to incur 
a needless risk. Had Pontiac ordered his followers 
to storm the palisades of Detroit, not one of them 
would have obeyed him. They might, indeed, after 
their strange superstition, have reverenced him as a 
madman; but, from that hour, his fame as a war- 
chief would have sunk forever. 

Balked in his treachery, the great chief withdrew 



Chap. XI.] 



FALSE ALARM. 



203 



to his village, enraged and mortified, yet still resolved 
to persevere. That Gladwyn had suffered him to 
escape, was to his mind an ample proof either of cow- 
ardice or ignorance. The latter supposition seemed 
the more probable, and he resolved to visit the Eng- 
lish once more, and convince them, if possible, that 
their suspicions against him were unfounded. Early 
on the following morning, he repaired to the fort with 
three of his chiefs, bearing in his hand the sacred 
calumet, or pipe of peace, the bowl carved in stone, 
and the stem adorned with feathers. Offering it to 
the commandant, he addressed him and his officers to 
the following effect: "My fathers, evil birds have 
sung lies in your ear. We that stand before you 
are friends of the English. We love them as our 
brothers, and, to prove our love, we have come this 
day to smoke the pipe of peace." At his departure, 
he gave the pipe to Major Campbell, second in com- 
mand, as a farther pledge of his sincerity. 

That afternoon, the better to cover his designs, 
Pontiac called the young men of all the tribes to a 
game of ball, which took place, with great noise and 
shouting, on the neighboring fields. At nightfall, 
the garrison were startled by a burst of loud, shrill 
yells. The drums beat to arms, and the troops were 
ordered to their posts; but the alarm was caused 
only by the victors in the ball play, who were an- 
nouncing their success by these discordant outcries. 
Meanwhile, Pontiac was in the Pottawattamie village, 
consulting with the chiefs of that tribe, and with the 
Wyandots, by what means they might compass the 
ruin of the English. 1 



i Pontiac MS, 



204 



TREACHERY OE PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XL 



Early on the following morning, Monday, the ninth 
of May, the French inhabitants went in procession 
to the principal church of the settlement, which stood 
near the river bank, about half a mile above the 
fort. Having heard mass, they all returned before 
eleven o'clock, without discovering any signs that 
the Indians meditated an. immediate act of hostility. 
Scarcely, however, had they done so, when the com- 
mon behind the fort was once more thronged with 
Indians of all the four tribes ; and Pontiac, advancing 
from among the multitude, approached the gate. It 
was closed and barred against him. Pontiac shouted 
to the sentinels, and demanded why he was refused 
admittance. Gladwyn himself replied, that the great 
chief might enter, if he chose, but that the crowd he 
had brought with him must remain outside. Pontiac 
rejoined, that he wished all his warriors to enjoy the 
fragrance of the friendly calumet. Gladwyn' s answer 
was more concise than courteous, and imported that 
he would have none of his rabble in the fort. Thus 
repulsed, Pontiac threw off the mask which he had 
worn so long. With a grin of hate and rage, he 
turned abruptly from the gate, and strode towards his 
followers, who, in great multitudes, lay flat upon the 
ground, just beyond reach of gunshot. At his ap- 
proach, they all leaped up and ran off, " yelping," in 
the words of an eye-witness, "like so many devils." 1 

Looking out from the loopholes, the garrison could 
see them running in a body towards the house of 
an old English woman, who lived, with her family, 
on a distant part of the common. They beat down 
the doors, and rushed tumultuously in. A moment 



1 MS. Letter — Gladwyn to Amherst, May 14. Pontiac MS., etc. 



Chap. XI.] PONTIAC THROWS OFF THE MASK. 



205 



more, and the mournful scalp yell told the fate of 
the wretched inmates. Another large body ran, with 
loud yells, to the river bank, and, leaping into their 
canoes, paddled with all speed to the Isle au Cochon. 
Here dwelt an Englishman, named Fisher, formerly a 
sergeant of the regulars. 

They soon dragged him from the hiding-place 
where he had sought refuge, murdered him on the 
spot, took his scalp, and made great rejoicings over 
this miserable trophy of brutal malice. On the fol- 
lowing day, several Canadians crossed over to the 
island to inter the body, which they accomplished, as 
they thought, very effectually. Tradition, however, re- 
lates, as undoubted truth, that when, a few days after, 
some of the party returned to the spot, they beheld 
the pale hands of the dead man thrust above the 
ground, in an attitude of eager entreaty. Having 
once more covered the refractory members with earth, 
they departed, in great wonder and awe; but what 
was their amazement, when, on returning a second 
time, they saw the hands protruding as before. At 
this, they repaired in horror to the priest, who 
hastened to the spot, sprinkled the grave with holy 
water, and performed over it the neglected rites of 
burial. Thenceforth, says the tradition, the corpse 
of the murdered soldier slept in peace. 1 

Pontiac had borne no part in the wolfish deeds of 
his followers. When he saw his plan defeated, he 
turned towards the shore, and no man durst approach 
him, for he was terrible in his rage. Pushing a 
canoe from the bank, he urged it, with vigorous 
strokes, against the current, towards the Ottawa 

1 St. Aubin's Account, MS. 

R 



206 



TREACHERY OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XI. 



village, on the farther side. As he drew near, he 
shouted to the inmates. None remained in the lodges 
but women, children, and old men, who all came flock- 
ing out at the sound of his imperious voice. Pointing 
across the water, he ordered that all should prepare to 
move the camp to the western shore, that the river 
might no longer interpose a barrier between his fol- 
lowers and the English. The squaws labored with 
eager alacrity to obey him. Provision, utensils, 
weapons, and even the bark covering to the lodges, 
were carried to the shore ; and before evening all 
was ready for embarkation. Meantime, the warriors 
had come dropping in from their bloody work, until, 
at nightfall, nearly all had returned. Then Pontiac, 
hideous in his war-paint, leaped into the central area 
of the village. Brandishing his tomahawk, and 
stamping on the ground, he recounted his former ex- 
ploits, and denounced vengeance on the English. The 
Indians nocked about him. Warrior after warrior 
caught the fierce contagion, and soon the ring was 
filled with dancers, circling round and round with 
frantic gesture, and startling the distant garrison with 
unearthly yells. 1 

The war-dance over, the work of embarkation was 
commenced, and long before morning the transfer 
was complete. The whole Ottawa population crossed 
the river, and pitched their wigwams on the west- 
ern side, just above the mouth of the little stream 
then known as Parent's Creek, but since named 
Bloody Run, from the scenes of terror which it wit- 
nessed. 2 

During the evening, fresh tidings of disaster reached 

1 Parent's Account, MS. Meloche's Account, MS, 

2 Gouin's Account, MS. 



Chap. XI.] 



GENERAL ATTACK. 



201 



the fort. A Canadian, named Desnoyers, came down 
the river in a birch canoe, and, landing at the water 
gate, brought news that two English officers, Sir Eob- 
ert Davers and Captain Robertson, had been waylaid 
and murdered by the Indians, above Lake St. Clair. 1 
The Canadian declared, moreover, that Pontiac had 
just been joined by a formidable band of Ojibwas, 
from the Bay of Saginaw. 2 These were a peculiarly 
ferocious horde, and their wretched descendants still 
retain the character. 

Every Englishman in the fort, whether trader or 
soldier, was now ordered under arms. No man lay 
clown to sleep, and Glaclwyn himself walked the 
ramparts throughout the night. 

All was quiet till the approach of dawn. But as 
the first dim redness tinged the east, and fields and 
woods grew visible in the morning twilight, suddenly 
the war-whoop rose on every side at once. As wolves 
assail the wounded bison, howling their gathering 
cries across the wintry prairie, so the fierce Indians, 
pealing their terrific yells, came bounding naked to 
the assault. The men hastened to their posts. And 
truly it was time, for not the Ottawas alone, but the 
whole barbarian swarm, Wyanclots, Pottawatt amies, 
and Ojibwas, were upon them, and bullets rapped 
hard and fast against the palisades. The soldiers 

1 Perm. Gaz. Nos. 1807, 1808. always appeared gay, to spite the 
Extract from an anonymous letter Rascals. They boiled and eat Sir 
— Detroit, July 9, 1763. Robert Davers ; and we are informed 
" You have long ago heard of our by Mr. Pauly, who escaped the other 
pleasant Situation, but the Storm is Day from one of the Stations sur- 
blown over. Was it not very agree- prised at the breaking out of the War, 
able to hear every Day, of their and commanded by himself, that he 
cutting, carving, boiling and eating had seen an Indian have the Skin of 
our Companions ? To see every Day Captain Robertson's Arm for a To- 
dead Bodies floating down the River, bacco-Pouch ! " 
mangled and disfigured ? But Brit- 2 Pontiac MS. 
ons, you know, never shrink; we 



208 



TREACHERY OF POXTIAC. 



[Chap. XL 



looked from the loopholes, thinking to see their as- 
sailants gathering for a rush against the feeble harrier. 
But. though their clamors filled the air. and their 
guns blazed thick and hot. yet very few were visible. 
Some were ensconced behind barns and fences, some 
skulked among bushes, and some lay fiat in hollows 
of the ground : while those who could find no shel- 
ter were leaping about with the agility of monkeys, 
to dodge the shot of the fort. Each had filled his 
mouth with bullets, for the convenience of loading, 
and each was charging and firing without suspending 
these agile gymnastics for a moment. There was one 
low hill, at no great distance from the fort, behind 
which countless black heads of Indians alternately 
appeared and vanished, while, all along the ridge, 
their guns emitted incessant white puffs of smoke. 
Every loophole was a target for then bullets ; but 
the fire was returned with steadiness, and not with- 
out effect. The Canadian engages of the fur-traders 
retorted the Indian war-whoops with outcries not less 
discordant, while the British and provincials paid back 
the clamor of the enemy with musket and rifle balls. 
Within half gunshot of the palisade was a cluster 
of outbuildings, behind which a host of Indians found 
shelter. A cannon was brought to bear upon them, 
loaded with red-hot spikes. They were soon wrapped 
in flames, upon which the disconcerted savages broke 
away in a body, and ran off yelping, followed by a 
shout of laughter from the soldiers. 1 

For six hours, the attack was unabated; but as the 
dav advanced, the assailants grew wearv of then 
futile efforts. Then fire slackened, then clamors died 

i Pontiac MS. Perm. Gaz. No. 1-505. MS. Letter — Gladwyn to Am- 
herst. May 14. etc. 



Chap. XI] 



A TRUCE. 



209 



away, and the garrison was left once more in peace, 
though from time to time a solitary shot, or lonely 
whoop, still showed the presence of some lingering 
savage, loath to be balked of his revenge. Among 
the garrison, only five men had been wounded, while 
the cautious enemy had suffered but trifling loss. 

Gladwyn was still convinced that the whole affair 
was but a sudden ebullition, which would soon sub- 
side ; and being, moreover, in great want of provision, 
he resolved to open negotiations with the Indians, 
under cover of which he might obtain the necessary 
supplies. The interpreter, La Butte, who, like most 
of his countrymen, might be said to hold a neutral 
position between the English and the Indians, was 
despatched to the camp of Pontiac to demand the 
reasons of his conduct, and declare that the com- 
mandant was ready to redress any real grievance of 
which he might complain. Two old Canadians of 
Detroit, Chapeton and Godefroy, earnest to forward 
the negotiation, offered to accompany him. The 
gates were opened for their departure, and many 
other inhabitants of the place took this opportunity 
of leaving it, alleging as their motive, that they did 
not wish to see the approaching slaughter of the 
English. 

. Reaching the Indian camp, the three ambassadors 
were received by Pontiac with great apparent kind- 
ness. La Butte delivered his message, and the two 
Canadians labored to dissuade the chief, for his own 
good and for theirs, from pursuing his hostile pur- 
poses. Pontiac stood listening, armed with the true 
impenetrability of an Indian. At every proposal, he 
uttered an ejaculation of assent, partly from a strange 
notion of courtesy peculiar to his race, and partly 
27 r* 



210 



TREACHERY OE PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XI. 



from the deep dissimulation which seems native to 
their blood. Yet with all this seeming acquiescence, 
the heart of the savage was unmoved as a rock. 
The Canadians were completely deceived. Leaving 
Chapeton and Godefroy to continue the conference 
and push the fancied advantage, La Butte hastened 
back to the fort. He reported the happy issue of 
his mission, and added that peace might readily be 
had by making the Indians a few presents, for 
which they are always rapaciously eager. When, 
however, he returned to the Indian camp, he found, 
to his chagrin, that his companions had made no 
progress in the negotiation. Though still professing 
a strong desire for peace, Pontiac had evaded every 
definite proposal. At La Butte's appearance, all the 
chiefs withdrew to consult among themselves. They 
returned after a short debate, and Pontiac declared 
that, out of their earnest desire for firm and lasting 
peace, they wished to hold council with their English 
fathers themselves. With this view, they were ex- 
pressly desirous that Major Campbell, second in com- 
mand, should visit their camp. This veteran officer, 
from his just, upright, and manly character, had 
gained the confidence of the Indians. To the Cana- 
dians the proposal seemed a natural one, and return- 
ing to the fort, they laid it before the commandant. 
Gladwyn suspected treachery, but Major Campbell 
urgently asked permission to comply with the request 
of Pontiac. He felt, he said, no fear of the In- 
dians, with whom he had always maintained the 
most friendly terms. Gladwyn, with some hesitation, 
acceded, and Campbell left the fort, accompanied by 
a junior officer, Lieutenant M'Dougal, and attended 
by La Butte and several other Canadians. 



Chap. XL] EMBASSY OF MAJOR CAMPBELL. 211 

111 the mean time, M. Gouin, anxious to learn 
what was passing, had entered the Indian camp, and, 
moving from lodge to lodge, soon saw and heard 
enough to convince him that the two British officers 
were advancing into the lion's jaws. 1 He hastened 
to despatch two messengers to warn them of 1 the 
peril. The party had scarcely left the gate when 
they were met by these men, breathless with run- 
ning; but the warning came too late. Once em- 
barked on the embassy, the officers would not be 
diverted from it ; and passing up the river road, they 
approached the little wooden bridge that led over 
Parent's Creek. Crossing this bridge, and ascending 
a rising ground beyond, they saw before them the 
wide-spread camp of the Ottawas. A dark multi- 
tude gathered along its outskirts, and no sooner did 
they recognize the red uniform of the officers, than 
they all raised at once a horrible outcry of whoops 
and howlings. Indeed, they seemed disposed to give 
the ambassadors the reception usually accorded to 
captives taken in war ; for the women seized sticks, 
stones, and clubs, and ran towards Campbell and his 
companion, as if to make them pass the cruel ordeal 
of running the gantlet. 2 Pontiac came forward, and 



1 Gouin's Account, MS. 

2 When a war party returned with 
prisoners, the whole population of 
the village turned out to receive them, 
armed with sticks, clubs, or even 
deadlier weapons. The captive was 
ordered to run to a given point, 
usually some conspicuous lodge, or 
a post driven into the ground, while 
his tormentors, ranging themselves 
in two rows, inflicted on him a mer- 
ciless flagellation, which only ceased 
when he had reached the goal. — 
Among the Iroquois, prisoners were 
led through the whole confederacy, 
undergoing this martyrdom at every 



village, and seldom escaping without 
the loss of a hand, a finger, or an 
eye. Sometimes the sufferer was 
made to dance and sing, for the bet- 
ter entertainment of the crowd. 

The story of General Stark is well 
known. Being captured, in his youth, 
by the Indians, and told to run the 
gantlet, he instantly knocked down 
the nearest warrior, snatched a club 
from his hands, and wielded it with 
such good will that no one dared ap- 
proach him, and he reached the goal 
scot free, while his more timorous 
companion was nearly beaten to 
death. 



212 



TREACHERY OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XL 



his voice allayed the tumult. He shook the officers 
by the hand, and, turning, led the way through the 
camp. It was a confused assemblage of huts, chiefly 
of a conical or half-spherical shape, and constructed 
of a slender framework covered with rush mats or 
sheets of birch bark. Many of the graceful birch 
canoes, used by the Indians of the upper lakes, were 
lying here and there among paddles, fish-spears, and 
blackened kettles slung above the embers of the 
fires. The camp was full of lean, wolfish dogs, who, 
roused by the clamor of their owners, kept up a 
discordant baying as the strangers passed. Pontiac 
paused before the entrance of a large lodge, and, en- 
tering, pointed to several mats placed on the ground, 
at the side opposite the opening. Here, obedient to 
his signal, the two officers sat down. Instantly the 
lodge was thronged with savages. Some, and these 
were for the most part chiefs, or old men, seated 
themselves on the ground before the strangers, while 
the remaining space was filled by a dense crowd, 
crouching or standing erect, and peering over each 
other's shoulders. At their first entrance, Pontiac 
had spoken a few words. A pause then ensued, 
broken at length by Campbell, who from his seat 
addressed the Indians in a short speech. It was 
heard in perfect silence, and no reply was made. 
For a full hour, the unfortunate officers saw before 
them the same concourse of dark, inscrutable faces, 
bending an unwavering gaze upon them. Some were 
passing out, and others coming in to supply their 
places, and indulge their curiosity by a sight of the 
Englishmen. At length, Major Campbell, conscious, 
no doubt, of the danger in which he was placed, 
resolved fully to ascertain his true position, and, 



Chap. XL] 



CAMPBELL MADE PRISONER. 



21b 



rising to his feet, declared his intention of returning 
to the fort. Pontiac made a sign that he should 
resume his seat. " My father," he said, " will sleep 
to-night hi the lodges of his reel children." The 
gray-haired soldier and his companion were betrayed 
into the hands of their enemies. 

Many of the Indians were eager to kill the cap- 
tives on the spot, but Pontiac would not carry his 
treachery so far. He protected them from injury 
and insult, and conducted them to the house of M. 
Meloche, near Parent's Creek, where good quarters 
were assigned them, and as much liberty allowed as 
was consistent with safe custody. 1 The peril of their 
situation was diminished by the circumstance that 
two Indians, who, several days before, had been de- 
tained at the fort for some slight offence, still re- 
mained prisoners in the power of the commandant. 2 



1 Meloche's Account, MS. Perm. 
Gaz. No. 1808. 

2 Extract from a MS. Letter — Sir 
J. Amherst to Major Gladwyn. 

" New York, 22nd June, 1763. 

" The Precautions you took when 
the Perfidious Villains came to Pay 
you a Visit, were Indeed very wisely 
Concerted ; And I Approve Entirely 
of the Steps you have since taken 
for the Defence of the Place, which, 
I hope, will have Enabled You to 
keep the Savages at Bay untill the 
Reinforcement, which Major Wil- 
kins Writes me he had sent you, Ar- 
rives with you. 

" I most sincerely Grieve for the 
Unfortunate Fate of Sir Robert Da- 
vers, Lieut. Robertson, and the Rest 
of the Poor People, who have fallen 
into the Hands of the Merciless Vil- 
lains. I Trust you did not Know of 
the Murder of those Gentlemen, 
when Pontiac came with a Pipe of 



Peace, for if you had, you certainly 
would have put him, and Every In- 
dian in your Power, to Death. Such 
Retaliation is the only Way of 
Treating such Miscreants. 

" I cannot but Approve of your 
having Permitted Captain Campbell 
and Lieut. MacDougal to go to the 
Indians, as you had no other Method 
to Procure Provisions, by which 
means you may have been Enabled 
to Preserve the Garrison ; for no 
Other Inducement should have pre- 
vailed on you to Allow those Gentle- 
men to Entrust themselves with the 
Savages. I am Nevertheless not 
without my Fears for them, and were 
it not that you have two Indians in 
your Hands, in Lieu of those Gentle- 
men, I should give them over for 
Lost. 

" I shall Add no more at present ; 
Capt. Dalzell will Inform you of the 
steps taken for Reinforcing you : and 
you may be assured — the utmost 



214 



TREACHERY OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XI. 



Late in the evening, La Butte, the interpreter, 
returned to the fort. His face wore a sad and 
downcast look, which sufficiently expressed the mel- 
ancholy tidings that he brought. On hearing his 
account, some of the officers suspected, though prob- 
ably without ground, that he was privy to the de- 
tention of the two ambassadors ; and La Butte, 
feeling himself an object of distrust, lingered about 
the streets, sullen and silent, like the Indians among 
whom his rough life had been spent. 

Expedition will be used for Collect- the Treacherous and Bloody Villains 
ing such a Force as may be Sufficient who have so Perfidiously Attacked 
for bringing Ample Vengeance on their Benefactors." 



CHAPTER XII. 

PONTIAC AT THE SIEGE OF DETROIT. 

On the morning after the detention of the officers, 
Pontiac crossed over, with several of his chiefs, to the 
Wyandot village. A part of this tribe, influenced by 
Father Pothier, their Jesuit priest, had refused to take 
up arms against the English ; but, being now threat- 
ened with destruction if they should longer remain 
neutral, they were forced to join the rest. They 
stipulated, however, that they should be allowed time 
to hear mass, before dancing the war-dance. 1 To this 
condition Pontiac readily agreed, " although," observes 
the chronicler in the fulness of his horror and detes- 
tation, " he himself had no manner of worship, and 
cared not for festivals or Sundays." These nominal 
Christians of Father Pothier' s flock, together with 
the other Wyandots, soon distinguished themselves in 
the war; fighting better, it was said, then all the 
other Indians — an instance of the marked superi- 
ority of the Iroquois over the Algonquin stock. 

Having secured these new allies, Pontiac prepared 
to resume his operations with fresh vigor ; and to this 
intent, he made an improved disposition of his forces. 
Some of the Pottawattamies were ordered to lie in 
wait along the river bank, below the fort; while 



1 Pontiac MS. 



216 



POXTIAC AT DETROIT. 



[Chap. XII. 



others concealed themselves in the woods, in order to 
intercept any Englishman who might approach by 
land or water. Another band of the same tribe were 
to conceal themselves in the neighborhood of the fort, 
when no general attack was going forward, in order 
to shoot down any soldier or trader who might chance 
to expose his person. On the twelfth of May, when 
these arrangements were complete, the Indians once 
more surrounded the fort, firing upon it from morn- 
ing till night. 

On the evening of that day, the officers met to 
consider what course of conduct the emergency re- 
quired; and, as one of them writes, the commandant 
was almost alone in the opinion that they ought still 
to defend the place. 1 It seemed to the rest that the 
only course remaining was to embark and sail for 
Niagara. Their condition appeared desperate, for, on 
the shortest allowance, they had scarcely provision 
enough to sustain the garrison three weeks, within 
which time there was little hope of succor. The 
houses being, moreover, of wood, and chiefly thatched 
with straw, might be set on fire with burning mis- 
siles. But the chief apprehensions of the officers 
arose from their dread that the enemy would make a 
general onset, and cut or burn their way through the 
pickets — a mode of attack to which resistance would 
be unavailing. Their anxiety on this score was re- 
lieved by a Canadian in the fort, who had spent half 
his life among Indians, and who now assured the 
commandant that every maxim of their warfare was 
opposed to such a measure. Indeed, an Indian's idea 
of military honor widely differs, as before observed, 



i Perm. Gaz. No. 1308. 



Chap. XII.] 



PERIL OF TEE GARRISON. 



217 



from that of a white man; for he holds it to con- 
sist no less in a wary regard to his own life than 
in the courage and impetuosity with which he assails 
his enemy. His constant aim is to gain advantages 
without incurring loss. He sets an inestimable value 
on the lives of his own party, and deems a victory 
dearly purchased by the death of a single warrior. A 
war-chief attains the summit of his renown when he 
can boast that he has brought home a score of scalps 
without the loss of a man; and his reputation is wo- 
fully abridged if the mournful wailings of the women 
mingle with the exulting yells of the warriors. Yet, 
with all his subtlety and caution, the Indian is not 
a coward, and, in his own way of fighting, often 
exhibits no ordinary courage. Stealing alone into the 
heart of an enemy's country, he prowls around the 
hostile village, watching every movement; and when 
night sets in, he enters a lodge, and calmly stirs the 
decaying embers, that, by their light, he may select 
his sleeping victims. With cool deliberation, dealing 
the mortal thrust, he kills foe after foe, and tears 
away scalp after scalp, until at length an alarm is 
given; then, with a wild yell, he bounds out into 
the darkness, and is gone. 

Time passed on, and brought little change and no 
relief to the harassed and endangered garrison. Day 
after day the Indians continued their attacks, until 
their war-cries and the rattle of their guns became 
familiar sounds. 

For many weeks, no man lay down to sleep, except 
in his clothes, and with his weapons by his side. 1 

i MS. Letter from an officer at " We have been besieged here two 

Detroit — no signature — July 31. Months, by Six Hundred Indians. 

Extract from a letter dated De- We have been upon the Watch Night 

troit, July 6. and Dav, from the Commanding Offi- 

28 s 



218 PONTIAC AT DETROIT. [Chap. XII. 

Parties of volunteers sallied, from time to time, to 
burn the outbuildings which gave shelter to the 
enemy. They cut down orchard trees, and levelled 
fences, until the ground about the fort was clear 
and open, and the enemy had no cover left from 
whence to iire. The two vessels in the river, sweep- 
ing the northern and southern curtains of the works 
with their fire, deterred the Indians from approaching 
those points, and gave material aid to the garrison. 
Still, worming their way through the grass, shelter- 
ing themselves behind every rising ground, the per- 
tinacious savages would crawl close to the palisade, 
and shoot arrows, tipped with burning tow, upon the 
roofs of the houses; but cisterns and tanks of water 
were every where provided against such an emer- 
gency, and these attempts proved abortive. The little 
church, which stood near the palisade, was particu- 
larly exposed, and would probably have been set on 
fire, had not the priest of the settlement threatened 
Pontiac with the vengeance of the Great Spirit, should 
he be guilty of such sacrilege. Pontiac, who was 
filled with eagerness to get possession of the garrison, 
neglected no expedient that his savage tactics could 
supply. He even went farther, and begged the French 
inhabitants to teach him the European method of 
attacking a fortified place by regular approaches ; 

cer to the lowest soldier, from the but we gave them so warm a Recep- 

8th of May, and have not had our tion that now they don't care for com- 

Cloaths off, nor slept all Night since ing to see us, tho' they now and then 

it began; and shall continue so till get behind a House or Garden, and 

we have a Reinforcement up. We fire at us about three or four Hundred 

then hope soon to give a good Ac- yards' distance. The Day before 

count of the Savages. Their Camp Yesterday, we killed a Chief and 

lies about a Mile and a half from the three others, and wounded some 

Fort ; and that's the nearest they more ; yesterday went up with our 

choose to come now. For the first Sloop, and battered their Cabins in 

two or three Days we were attacked such a Manner that .they are glad to 

by three or four Hundred of them, keep farther off." 



Chap. XXL] HE SUMMONS THE GAERISON. 



219 



but the rude Canadians knew as little of the matter 
as he; or if, by chance, a few were better informed, 
they wisely preferred to conceal their knowledge. 
Soon after the first attack, the Ottawa chief had 
sent in to Gladwyn a summons to surrender, assur- 
ing him that if the place were at once given up, he 
might embark on board the vessels, with all his men ; 
but that, if he persisted in his defence, he would 
treat him as Indians treat each other; that is, he 
would burn him alive. To this Gladwyn made an- 
swer that he cared nothing for his threats. 1 The 
attacks were now renewed with increased activity, and 
the assailants were soon after inspired with fresh ar- 
dor by the arrival of a hundred and twenty Ojibwa 
warriors from Grand Biver. Every man in the fort, 
officers, soldiers, traders, and engages, now slept upon 
the ramparts; even in stormy weather, none were 
allowed to withdraw to their quarters; 2 yet a spirit 
of confidence and cheerfulness still prevailed among 
the weary garrison. 

Meanwhile, great efforts were made to procure a 
supply of provisions. Every house was examined, and 
all that could serve for food, even grease and tallow, 
was collected and placed in the public storehouse, 
compensation having first been made to the owners. 
Notwithstanding these precautions, Detroit must have 
been abandoned or destroyed, but for the assistance 
of a few friendly Canadians, and especially of M. Baby, 
a prominent habitant, who lived on the opposite side 
of the river, and provided the garrison with cattle, 
hogs, and other supplies. These, under cover of night, 
were carried from his farm to the fort in boats, the 



i Pontiac MS. 



2 Penn. Gaz. No. 1808. 



220 



PONTIAC AT DETROIT. 



[Chap. XII. 



Indians long remaining ignorant of what was going 
forward. 1 

They, on their part, began to suffer from hunger. 
Thinking to have taken Detroit at a single stroke, 
they had neglected, with their usual improvidence, to 
provide against the exigencies of a siege; and now, 
in small parties, they would visit the Canadian fami- 
lies along the river shore, passing from house to house, 
demanding provisions, and threatening violence in 
case of refusal. This was the more annoying, since 
the food thus obtained was wasted with character- 
istic recklessness. Unable to endure it longer, the 
Canadians appointed a deputation of fifteen of the 
eldest among them to wait upon Pontiac, and com- 
plain of his followers' conduct. The meeting took 
place at a Canadian house, probably that of M. Me- 
loche, where the great chief had made his head-quar- 
ters, and where the prisoners, Campbell and M'Dougal, 
were confined. 

When Pontiac saw the deputation approaching along 
the river road, he was seized with an exceeding eager- 
ness to know the purpose of their visit; for having 
long desired to gain the Canadians as allies against 



I Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Major Gladwyn to Sir J. Amherst. 

" Detroit, July 8th, 1763. 
" Since the Commencement of this 
Extraordinary Affair, I have been In- 
formed, that many of the Inhabitants 
of this Place, seconded by some 
French Traders from Montreal, have 
made the Indians Believe that a 
French Army & Fleet were in the 
River St. Lawrence, and that Anoth- 
er Army would come from the Illi- 
nois ; And that when I Published the 
cessation of Arms, they said it was a 
mere Invention of Mine, purposely 



Calculated to Keep the Indians Quiet, 
as We were Affraid of them ; but 
they were not such Fools as to Be- 
lieve me ; Which, with a thousand 
other Lies, calculated to Stir up Mis- 
chief, have Induced the Indians to 
take up Arms ; And I dare say it will 
Appear ere long, that One Half of 
the Settlement merit a Gibbet, and 
the Other Half ought to be Decimat- 
ed ; Nevertheless, there is some Hon- 
est Men among them, to whom I am 
Infinitely Obliged ; I mean, Sir, Mon- 
sieur Navarre, the two Babys, & my 
Interpreters, St. Martin & La Bute." 



Chap. XII] HIS SPEECH TO THE FKENCH. 



221 



the English, and made several advances to that effect, 
he hoped that their present errand might relate to the 
object next his heart. So strong was his curiosity, 
that, forgetting the ordinary rule of Indian dignity 
and decorum, he asked the business on which they 
had come before they themselves had communicated 
it. The Canadians replied, that they wished the chiefs 
to be convened, for they were about to speak upon 
a matter of much importance. Pontiac instantly 
despatched messengers to the different camps and 
villages. The chiefs, soon arriving at his summons, 
entered the apartment, where they sat down upon the 
floor, having first gone through the necessary for- 
mality of shaking hands with the Canadian deputies. 
After a suitable pause, the eldest of the French rose, 
and heavily complained of the outrages which they 
had committed. " You pretend," he said, "to be friends 
of the French, and yet you plunder us of our hogs 
and cattle, you trample upon our fields of young 
corn, and when you enter our houses, you enter with 
tomahawk raised. When your French father comes 
from Montreal with his great army, he will hear of 
what you have done, and, instead of shaking hands 
with you as brethren, he will punish you as enemies." 

Pontiac sat with his eyes rivetted upon the ground, 
listening to every word that was spoken. When the 
speaker had concluded, he returned the following 
answer : — 

" Brothers : 

" We have never wished to do you harm, nor al- 
low any to be done you; but among us there are 
many young men who, though strictly watched, find 
opportunities of mischief. It is not to revenge my- 
self alone that I make war on the English. It is to 

s * 



222 



PONTIAC AT DETROIT. 



[Chap. XII. 



revenge you, my brothers. When the English in- 
sulted us, they insulted you also. I know that they 
have taken away your arms, and made you sign a 
paper which they have sent home to their country. 
Therefore you are left defenceless ; and I mean now 
to revenge your cause and my own together. I mean 
to destroy the English, and leave not one upon our 
lands. You do not know the reasons from which 
I act. I have told you those only which concern 
yourselves ; but you will learn all in time. You will 
cease then to think me a fool. I know, my brothers, 
that there are many among you who take part with 
the English. I am sorry for it, for their own sakes ; 
for when our father arrives, I shall point them out 
to him, and they will see whether they or I have 
most reason to be satisfied with the part we have 
acted. 

"I do not doubt, my brothers, that this war is very 
troublesome to you, for our warriors are continually 
passing and repassing through your settlement, I am 
sorry for it. Do not think that I approve of the 
damage that is done by them ; and, as a proof of this, 
remember the war with the Foxes, and the part which 
I took in it. It is now seventeen years since the 
Ojibwas of Michillimackinac, combined with the Sacs 
and Foxes, came down to destroy you. Who then 
defended you] Was it not I and my young men] 
Mickinac, great chief of all these nations, said in 
council, that he would carry to his village the head 
of your commandant — that he would eat his heart 
and drink his blood. Did I not take your part 1 Did 
I not go to his camp, and say to him, that if he wished 
to kill the French, he must first kill me and my 
warriors'? Did I not assist you in routing them and 



Chap. XII] HIS SPEECH TO THE FRENCH. 223 

driving them away] 1 And now you think that I would 
turn my arms against you ! No, my brothers ; I am 
the same French Pontiac who assisted you seventeen 
years ago. I am a Frenchman, and I wish to die a 
Frenchman; and I now repeat to you that you and 
I are one — that it is for both our interests that I 
should be avenged. Let me alone. I do not ask you 
for aid, for it is not in your power to give it, I 
only ask provisions for myself and men. Yet, if 
you are inclined to assist me, I shall not refuse you. 
It would please me, and you yourselves would be 
sooner rid of your troubles ; for I promise you, that 
as soon as the English are driven out, we will go 
back to our villages, and there await the arrival of 
our French father. You have heard what I have to 
say ; remain at peace, and I will watch that no 
harm shall be done to you, either by my men or by 
the other Indians." 

This speech is reported by a writer whose chief 
characteristic is the scrupulous accuracy with which 
he has chronicled minute details without interest or 



1 The annals of these remote and other. The Sacs and Foxes were 

gloomy regions are involved in such nearly all cut off ; and this proved the 

obscurity, that it is hard to discover cause of their eventual expulsion 

the precise character of the events from that country." 

to which Pontiac here refers. The The M'Dougal manuscripts, above 

only allusion to them, which the writer referred to, belonged to a son of the 

has met with, is the following, in- Lieutenant M'Dougal who was the 

scribed on a tattered scrap of soiled fellow-prisoner of Major Campbell, 

paper, found among the M'Dougal On the death of the younger M'Dou- 

manuscripts : — gal, the papers, which were very 

" Five miles below the mouth of voluminous, and contained various 

Wolf River is the Great Death notes concerning the Indian war, and 

Ground. This took its name from the captivity of his father, came into 

the circumstance, that some years the possession of a family at the 

before the Old French War, a great town of Palmer, in Michigan, who 

battle was fought between the French permitted such of them as related to 

troops, assisted by the Menomonies the subjects in question to be copied 

and Ottaways on the one side, and by the writer, 
the Sac and Fox Indians on the 



224 



PONTIAC AT DETROIT. 



[Chap. XII. 



importance. He neglects, moreover, no opportunity 
of casting ignominy and contempt upon the name 
of Pontiac. His mind is of so dull and common- 
place an order as to exclude trie supposition that he 
himself is author of the words which he ascribes to 
the Ottawa chief, and the speech may probably be 
taken as a literal translation of the original. 

As soon as the council broke up, Pontiac took 
measures for bringing the disorders complained of to 
a close, while, at the same time, he provided sus- 
tenance for his warriors; and, in doing this, he dis- 
played a policy and forecast scarcely paralleled in 
the history of his race. He first forbade the com- 
mission of farther outrage. 1 He next visited in turn 
the families of the Canadians, and, inspecting the 
property belonging to them, he assigned to each the 
share of provisions which it must furnish for the 
support of the Indians. 2 The contributions thus 
levied were all collected at the house of Meloche, 
near Parent's Creek, whence they were regularly is- 
sued, as the exigence required, to the savages of 
the different camps. As the character and habits of 
an Indian but ill qualify him to act the part of 
commissary, Pontiac in this matter availed himself 
of French assistance. 

On the river bank, not far from the house of 
Meloche, lived an old Canadian, named Quilleriez, a 
man of exceeding vanity and self-conceit, and noted 
in the settlement for the gayety of his attire. He 
wore moccasons of the most elaborate pattern, and 
a sash plentifully garnished with beads and wam- 
pum. He was continually intermeddling in the 



i Peltier's Account, MS. 



2 Gouin's Account, MS. 



Chap. XII] 



HE ISSLES PPvOMISSOBY NOTES. 



225 



affairs of the Indians, being anxious to be regarded 
as the leader or director among them. 1 Of this man 
Pontiac evidently made a tool, employing him, to- 
gether with several others, to discharge, beneath his 
eye, the duties of his novel commissariat. Anxious 
to avoid offending the French, yet unable to make 
compensation for the provisions he had exacted, Pon- 
tiac had recourse to a remarkable expedient, sug- 
gested, no doubt, by one of these European assist- 
ants. He issued promissory notes, drawn upon birch 
bark, and signed with the figure of an otter, the 
totem to which he belonged ; and we are told by a 
trustworthy authority, that they were all faithfully 
redeemed. 2 In this, as in several other instances, he 
exhibits an openness of mind and a power of adap- 
tation not a little extraordinary among a people 
whose intellect will rarely leave the narrow and 
deeply-cut channels in which it has run for ages, 
who reject instruction, and adhere with rigid tenacity 
to ancient ideas and usages. Pontiac always exhib- 
ited an eager desire for knowledge. Rogers repre- 
sents him as earnest to learn the military art as 
practised among Europeans, and as inquiring curi- 
ously into the mode of making cloth, knives, and 
the other articles of Indian trade. Of his keen and 
subtle genius we have the following singular testi- 
mony from the pen of General Gage: "Erom a 
paragraph of M. D'Abbadie's letter, there is reason to 
judge of Pontiac, not only as a savage possessed of 
the most refined cunning and treachery natural to 
the Indians, but as a person of extraordinary abil- 
ities. He says that he keeps two secretaries, one to 

1 Tradition related by M. Baby. 

2 Rogers, Account of North America, 244. 

29 



226 



PONTIAC AT DETROIT. 



[Chap. XII. 



write for him, and the other to read the letters he 
receives, and he manages them so as to keep each 
of them ignorant of what is transacted by the 
other." 1 

Major Sogers, a man familiar with the Indians, 
and an acute judge of mankind, speaks in the high- 
est terms of Pontiac's character and talents. " He 
puts on," he says, " an air of majesty and princely 
grandeur, and is greatly honored and revered by his 
subjects." 2 

In the present instance, few durst infringe the 
command he had given, that the property of the 
Canadians should be respected; indeed, it is said 
that none of his followers would cross the cultivated 
fields, but always followed the beaten paths ; in such 
awe did they stand of his displeasure. 3 

Pontiac's position was very different from that of 
an ordinary military leader. When we remember 
that his authority, little sanctioned by law or usage, 
was derived chiefly from the force of his own indi- 
vidual mind, and that it was exercised over a people 
singularly impatient of restraint, we may better ap- 
preciate the commanding energy that could hold 
control over spirits so intractable. 

1 MS. Letter — Gage to Lord Hal- hear, if any survive to relate them, 

ifax, April 16, 1764. very tragical Accounts. The Be- 

Extract from a MS. Letter — Wil- siegers are led on by an enterprising 

liam Smith, Jr., to . Fellow called Pondiac. He is a 

Genius, for he possesses great Bra- 

" New York, 22d Nov. 1763. very, Art, & Oratory, & has had the 

" 'Tis an old saying that the Devil Address to get himself not only at 

is easier raised than laid. Sir Jef- the Head of his Conquerors, but 

frey has found it so, with these In- elected Generalissimo of all the con- 

dian Demons. They have cut his federate Forces now acting against 

little Army to Pieces, & almost if us — Perhaps he may deserve to be 

not entirely obstructed the Commu- called the Mithridates of the West." 

nication to the Detroite, where the 2 Rogers, North America, 240. 

Enemy are grown very numerous ; 3 Gouin's Account, MS. 
and from whence I fancy you'll soon 



Chap. XII] TRAITS OF HIS CHARACTER. 221 



The glaring faults of Pontiac's character have 
already appeared too clearly. He was artful and 
treacherous, bold, fierce, ambitious, and revengeful; 
yet the following anecdotes will evince that noble 
and generous thought was no stranger to the savage 
hero of this dark forest tragedy. Some time after 
the period of which we have been speaking, Rogers 
came up to Detroit with a detachment of troops, 
and, on landing, sent a bottle of brandy, by a friendly 
Indian, as a present to Pontiac. The Indians had 
always been suspicious that the English meant to 
poison them. Those around the chief endeavored to 
persuade him that the brandy was drugged. Pon- 
tiac listened to what they said, and, as soon as they 
had concluded, poured out a cup of the liquor, and 
immediately drank it, saying that the man whose life 
he had saved had no power to kill him. He re- 
ferred to his having prevented the Indians from 
attacking Rogers and his party when on their way 
to demand the surrender of Detroit. The story may 
serve as a counterpart to the well-known anecdote 
of Alexander the Great and his physician. 1 

Pontiac had been an old friend of Baby; and one 
evening, at an early period of the siege, he entered 
his house, and, seating himself by the fire, looked 
for some time steadily at the embers. At length, 
raising his head, he said he had heard that the 
English had offered the Canadian a bushel of sil- 
ver for the scalp of his friend. Baby declared that 
the story was false, and protested that he would 
never betray him. Pontiac for a moment keenly 
studied his features. "My brother has spoken the 



1 Rogers, North America, 244. 



228 



PONTIAC AT DETROIT. 



* 

[Chap. XII. 



truth," he said, " and I will show that I believe 
him." He remained in the house through the even- 
ing, and, at its close, wrapped himself in his blanket, 
and lay down upon a bench, where he slept in full 
confidence till morning. 1 

Another anecdote, from the same source, will ex- 
hibit the power which he exercised over the minds 
of his followers. A few young Wyandots were in 
the habit of coming, night after night, to the house 
of Baby, to steal hogs and cattle. The latter com- 
plained of the theft to Pontiac, and desired his protec- 
tion. Being at that time ignorant of the intercourse 
between Baby and the English, Pontiac hastened to 
the assistance of his friend, and, arriving about night- 
fall at the house, walked to and fro among the barns 
and enclosures. At a late hour, he distinguished the 
dark forms of the plunderers stealing through the 
gloom. " Go back to your village, you Wyandot 
dogs," said the Ottawa chief; "if you tread again on 
this man's land, you shall die." They slunk back 
abashed; and from that time forward, the Canadian's 
property was safe. The Ottawas had no political 
connection with the Wyandots, who speak a lan- 
guage radically distinct. Over them he could claim 
no legitimate authority; yet his powerful spirit forced 
respect and obedience from all who approached him. 2 

1 Tradition related by M. Francois Pontiac's friend, who lives opposite 
Baby. Detroit, upon nearly the same site 

2 Tradition related by M. Francois formerly occupied by his father's 
Baby, of Windsor, U. C., the son of house. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ROUT OF CUYLER'S DETACHMENT. — FATE OF THE 
FOREST GARRISONS. 

While perils were thickening around the garrison 
of Detroit, the British commander-in-chief at New 
York remained ignorant of their danger. Indeed, 
an unwonted quiet had prevailed, of late, along the 
borders and about the neighboring forts. "With the 
opening of spring, a strong detachment had been sent 
up the lakes, with a supply of provisions and ammu- 
nition for the use of Detroit and the other western 
posts. The boats of this convoy were now pursu- 
ing their course along the northern shore of Lake 
Erie; and Gladwyn's garrison, aware of their ap- 
proach, awaited their arrival with an anxiety which 
every day increased. 

Day after day passed on, and the red cross of St. 
George still floated above Detroit. The keen-eyed 
watchfulness of the Indians had never abated; and 
woe to the soldier who showed his head above the 
palisades, or exposed his person before a loophole. 
Strong in his delusive hope of French assistance, Pon- 
tiac had sent messengers to M. Neyon, commandant 
at the Illinois, earnestly requesting that a force of 
regular troops might be sent to his assistance ; and 
Gladwyn, on his side, had ordered one of the vessels 
to Niagara, to hasten forward the expected convoy. 

T 



230 



ROUT OF CUTLER'S DETACHMENT. [Chap. XHI. 



The schooner set sail; but on the next day, as she 
lay becalmed at the entrance of Lake Erie, a multi- 
tude of canoes suddenly darted out upon her from 
the neighboring shores. In the prow of the foremost 
the Indians had placed their prisoner, Major Camp- 
bell, with the dastardly purpose of interposing him 
as a screen between themselves and the fire of the 
English. But the brave old man called out to the 
crew to do their duty, without regard to him. Hap- 
pily, at that moment a fresh breeze sprang up ; the 
flapping sails stretched to the wind, and the schooner 
bore prosperously on her course towards Niagara, 
leaving the savage flotilla far behind. 1 

The fort, or rather town, of Detroit had, by this 
time, lost its wonted vivacity and life. Its narrow 
streets were gloomy and silent. Here and there 
strolled a Canadian, in red cap and gaudy sash; the 
weary sentinel walked to and fro before the quarters 
of the commandant ; an officer, perhaps, passed along 
with rapid step and anxious face; or an Indian girl, 
the mate of some soldier or trader, moved silently by, 
in her finery of beads and vermilion. Such an aspect 
as this the town must have presented on the morn- 
ing of the thirtieth, of May, when, at about nine 



i Perm. Gaz. No. 1807. MS. Let- 
ter — Wilkins to Amherst, June 18. 

This incident may have suggested 
the story told by Mrs. Grant, in her 
Memoirs of an American Lady. A 
young British officer, of noble birth, 
had been living for some time among 
the Indians, and having encountered 
many strange adventures, he was now- 
returning in a canoe with a party of 
his late associates, — none of them, it 
appears, were aware that hostilities 
existed, — and approached the schoon- 
er just before the attack commenced, 
expecting a friendly reception. Sir 



Robert D , the young officer, was 

in Indian costume, and wishing to 
surprise his friends, he made no an- 
swer when hailed from the vessel, 
whereupon he was instantly fired at 
and killed.— The story is without con- 
firmation in any contemporary docu- 
ment, and, indeed, is impossible in 
itself. Sir Robert Davers was killed, 
as before mentioned, near Lake St. 
Clair; but neither in his character, 
nor in the mode of his death, did he at 
all resemble the romantic adventurer 
whose fate is commemorated by Mrs. 
Grant. 



Chap. XIII] 



EEEEEE AT HAND. 



231 



o'clock, the voice of the sentinel sounded from the 
south-east bastion, and loud exclamations, in the di- 
rection of the river, roused Detroit from its lethargy. 
Instantly the place was astir. Soldiers, traders, and 
habitans, hurrying through the water gate, thronged 
the canoe wharf and the narrow strand without. The 
half-wild coureurs des bois, the tall and sinewy pro- 
vincials, and the stately British soldiers, stood crowded 
together, their uniforms soiled and worn, and their 
faces haggard with unremitted watching. Yet all 
alike wore an animated and joyous look. The long- 
expected convoy was full in sight. On the farther 
side of the river, at some distance below the fort, a 
line of boats was rounding the woody projection, then 
called Montreal Point, their oars flashing in the sun, 
and the red flag of England flying from the stem 
of the foremost. 1 The toils and dangers of the garri- 
son were drawing to an end. With one accord, they 
broke into three hearty cheers, again and again re- 
peated, while a cannon, glancing from the bastion, 
sent its loud voice of defiance to the enemy, and 
welcome to approaching friends. But suddenly every 
cheek grew pale with horror. Dark naked figures 
were seen rising, with wild gesture, in the boats, 
while, in place of the answering salute, the distant 
yell of the war-whoop fell faintly on their ears. The 
convoy was in the hands of the enemy. The boats 
had all been taken, and the troops of the detachment 
slain or made captive. Officers and men stood gazing 
in mournful silence, when an incident occurred which 
caused them to forget the general calamity in the ab- 
sorbing interest of the moment. 



i Pontiac MS. 



232 



ROUT OF CUTLER'S DETACHMENT. |Chap. XIII. 



Leaving the disappointed garrison, we will pass over 
to the principal victims of this deplorable misfortune. 
In each of the boats, of which there were eighteen, 
two or more of the captured soldiers, deprived of 
their weapons, were compelled to act as rowers, guard- 
ed by several armed savages, while many other In- 
dians, for the sake of farther security, followed the 
boats along the shore. 1 In the foremost, as it hap- 
pened, there were four soldiers and only three Indians. 
The larger of the two vessels still lay anchored in 
the stream, about a bow-shot from the fort, while her 
companion, as we have seen, had gone down to Ni- 
agara to hasten up this very reenforcement. As the 
boat came opposite this vessel, the soldier who acted 
as steersman conceived a daring plan of escape. The 
principal Indian sat immediately in front of another 
of the soldiers. The steersman called, in English, 
to his comrade to seize the savage and throw him 
overboard. The man answered that he was not strong- 
enough; on which the steersman directed him to 
change places with him, as if fatigued with rowing, 
a movement which would excite no suspicion on the 
part of their guard. As the bold soldier stepped for- 
ward, as if to take his companion's oar, he suddenly 
seized the Indian by the hair, and griping with the 
other hand the girdle at his waist, lifted him by main 
force, and flung him into the river. The boat rocked 
till the water surged over her gunwale. The Indian 
held fast to his enemy's clothes, and, drawing himself 
upward as he trailed alongside, stabbed him again 
and again with his knife, and then dragged him 
overboard. Both went down the swift current, rising 



i Pontiac MS. 



Chap. XIH] 



ESCAPE OE PRISONERS. 



233 



and sinking; and, as some relate, perished, grappled 
in each other's arms. 1 The two remaining Indians 
leaped out of the boat. The prisoners turned, and 
pulled for the distant vessel, shouting aloud for aid. 
The Indians on shore opened a heavy fire upon them, 
and many canoes paddled swiftly hi pursuit. The 
men strained with desperate strength. A fate inex- 
pressibly horrible was the alternative. The bullets 
hissed thickly around their heads ; one of them was 
soon wounded, and the light birch canoes gained on 
them with fearful rapidity. Escape seemed hope- 
less, when the report of a cannon burst from the side 
of the vessel. The ball new close past the boat, beat- 
ing the water in a line of foam, and narrowly miss- 
ing the foremost canoe. At this, the pursuers drew 
back in dismay; and the Indians on shore, being far- 
ther saluted by a second shot, ceased firing, and scat- 
tered among the bushes. The prisoners soon reached 
the vessel, where they were greeted as men snatched 
from the jaws of fate ; " a living monument," writes an 
officer of the garrison, "that Fortune favors the brave." 2 
They related many particulars of the catastrophe 
which had befallen them and their companions. 
Lieutenant Cuyler had left Fort Niagara as early 
as the thirteenth of May, and embarked from Fort 
Schlosser, just above the falls, with ninety-six men 
and a plentiful supply of provision and ammunition. 
Day after day he had coasted along the northern 
shore of Lake Erie, and had seen neither friend nor 
foe amid those lonely forests and waters, when, on 



1 Another witness, Gouin, affirms 2 p e nn. Gaz. No. 1807. St. Au- 
that the Indian freed himself from the bin's Account, MS. Peltiers Ac- 
dying grasp of the soldier, and swam count, MS. 
ashore. 

30 t* 



234 



ROUT OF CUYLERS DETACHMENT. [Chap. XIII. 



the twenty-eighth of the month, he landed at Point 
Pelee, not far from the month of the Eiver Detroit. 
The boats were drawn on the beach, and the party 
prepared to encamp. A man and a boy went to 
gather firewood at a short distance from the spot, 
when an Indian leaped ont of the woods, seized 
the boy by the hair, and tomahawked him. The 
man ran into camp with the alarm. Cnyler imme- 
diately formed his soldiers into a semicircle before 
the boats. He had scarcely done so when the enemy 
opened their fire. For an instant, there was a hot 
blaze of musketry on both sides ; then the Indians 
broke out of the woods in a body, and rushed fiercely 
upon the centre of the line, which gave way hi every 
part ; the men flinging down their guns, running in 
a blind panic to the boats, and struggling with ill- 
directed efforts to shove them into the water. Five 
w T ere set afloat, and pushed off from the shore, crowd- 
ed with the terrified soldiers. Cuyler, seeing himself, 
as he says, deserted by his men, waded up to his 
neck in the lake, and climbed into one of the retreat- 
ing boats. The Indians, on their part, pushing two 
more afloat, went in piu'suit of the fugitives, three 
boat loads of whom allowed themselves to be recap- 
tured without resistance; but the remaining two, hi 
one of which was Cuyler himself, made their escape. 1 
They rowed all night, and landed in the morning 

1 " Being abandoned by my men, I the Indians having manned two 
was Forced to Retreat in the best Boats, pursued and Brought back 
manner I could. I was left with 6 men Three of the Five, keeping a con- 
on the Beech, Endeavoring to get off tinual Fire from off the Shore, and 
a Boat, which not being able to Ef- from the two Boats that followed us, 
feet, was Obliged to Run up to my about a Mile on the Lake ; the Wind 
Neck, in the Lake, to get to a Boat springing up fair, I and the other 
that had pushed off, without my Remaining Boat Hoisted sail and Es- 
Knowledge. — When I was in the caped." — Cuyler' s Report, MS. 
Lake I saw Five Boats maimed, and 



Chap. XIII] 



INDIAN DEBAUCH. 



235 



upon a small island. Between thirty and forty men, 
some of whom were wounded, were crowded in these 
two boats ; the rest, about sixty in number, being 
killed or taken. Cuyler now made for Sandusky, 
which, on his arrival, he found burnt to the ground. 
Immediately leaving the spot, he rowed along the 
south shore to Presqu'Isle, from whence he proceeded 
to Niagara, and reported his loss to Major Wilkins, 
the commanding officer. 1 

The actors in this bold and well-executed stroke 
were the Wyandots, who, for some days, had lain in 
ambush at the mouth of the river, to intercept trading 
boats or parties of troops. Seeing the extreme fright 
and confusion of Cuyler' s men, they had forgotten 
their usual caution, and rushed upon them in the 
manner described. The ammunition, provision, and 
other articles, taken in this attack, formed a valuable 
prize ; but, unfortunately, there was, among the rest, 
a great quantity of whiskey. This the Indians seized, 
and carried to their respective camps, which, through- 
out the night, presented a scene of savage revelry 
and riot. The liquor was poured into vessels of birch- 



1 Cuyler's Report, MS. 
Extract from a MS. Letter — Major 
Wilkins to Sir J. Amherst. 

" Niagara, 6th June, 1763. 
"Just as I was sending 1 off my 
Letter of Yesterday, Lieutenant Cuy- 
ler, of the Queen's Rangers, Arrived 
from his Intended Voyage to the De- 
troit. He has been very Unfortunate, 
Having been Defeated by Indians 
within 30 miles of the Detroit River ; 
I observed that he was Wounded and 
Weak, and Desired him to take the 
Surgeon's Assistance and some Rest, 
and Recollect the Particulars of the 
Affair, and let me have them in 
Writing, as nerhaps I should find it 



Necessary to Transmit them to Your 
Excellency, which I have now Done. 

"It is probable Your Excellency 
will have heard of what has Hap- 
pened by way of Fort Pitt, as Ensign 
Christie, Commanding at Presqu'Isle, 
writes me he has sent an Express to 
Acquaint the Commanding Officer at 
that Place, of Sanduskie's being De- 
stroyed, and of Lieut. Cuyler's De- 
feat. 

" Some Indians of the Six Nations 
are now with me. They seem very 
Civil ; The Interpreter has just told 
them I was writing to Your Excel- 
lency for Rum, and they are very 
glad." 



236 



ROUT OE CUYLER'S DETACHMENT. [Chap. XIII. 



bark, or any thing capable of containing it ; and the 
Indians, crowding around, scooped it up in their cups 
and ladles, and quaffed the raw whiskey like water. 
"While some sat apart, wailing and moaning in maud- 
lin drunkenness, others were maddened to the ferocity 
of wild beasts. Dormant jealousies were awakened, 
old forgotten quarrels kindled afresh, and had not 
the squaws taken the precaution of hiding all the 
weapons they could find before the debauch began, 
much blood would, no doubt, have been spilt. As it 
was, the savages were not entirely without means of 
indulging their drunken rage. Many were w^ounded, 
of whom two died in the morning; and several oth- 
ers had their noses bitten off — a singular mode of 
revenge, much in vogue upon similar occasions, among 
the Indians of the upper lakes. The English were 
gainers by this scene of riot ; for late in the evening, 
two Indians, in all the valor and vain-glory of drunk- 
enness, came running directly towards the fort, boast- 
ing their prowess in a loud voice; but being greeted 
with two rifle bullets, they leaped into the air like a 
pair of wounded bucks, and fell dead on their tracks. 

It will not be proper to pass over in silence the 
fate of the unfortunate men taken prisoners in this 
affair. After night had set in, several Canadians 
came to the fort, bringing vague and awful reports 
of the scenes that had been enacted at the Indian 
camp. The soldiers gathered round them, and, frozen 
with horror, listened to the appalling narrative. A 
cloud of deep gloom sank down upon the garrison, 
and none could help reflecting how thin and frail a 
barrier protected them from a similar fate. On the 
following day, and for several succeeding days, they 
beheld frightful confirmation of the rumors they had 



Chap. XIII] FATE OF THE CAPTIVES. 



237 



heard. Naked corpses, gashed with knives and 
scorched with fire, floated down on the pure waters 
of the Detroit, whose fish came up to nibble at the 
clotted blood that clung to their ghastly faces. 1 

Late one afternoon, at about this period of the 
siege, the garrison were again greeted with the dismal 
cry of death, and a line of naked warriors was seen 
issuing from the woods, which, like a wall of foliage, 
rose beyond the pastures in rear of the fort. Each 
savage was painted black, and each bore a scalp 



1 "The Indians, fearing that the 
other barges might escape as the first 
had done, changed their plan of going 
to the camp. They landed their 
prisoners, tied them, and conducted 
them by land to the Ottawas village, 
and then crossed them to Pondiac's 
camp, where they were all butchered. 
As soon as the canoes reached the 
shore, the barbarians landed their 
prisoners, one after the other, on the 
beach. They made them strip them- 
selves, and then sent anwvs into dif- 
ferent parts of their bodies. These 
unfortunate men wished sometimes 
to throw themselves on the ground to 
avoid the arrows ; but they were beat- 
en with sticks and forced to stand up 
until they fell dead ; after which those 
who had not fired fell upon their 
bodies, cut them in pieces, cooked, 
and ate them. On others they exer- 
cised different modes of torment by 
cutting their flesh with flints, and 
piercing them with lances. They 
would then cut their feet and hands 
off, and leave them weltering in their 
blood till they were dead. Others 
were fastened to stakes, and chil- 
dren employed in burning them with 
a slow fire. No kind of torment was 
left untried by these Indians. Some 
of the bodies were left on shore ; oth- 
ers were thrown into the river. Even 
the women assisted their husbands in 
torturing their victims. They slitted 
them with their knives, and mangled 
them in various ways. There were, 



however, a few whose lives were 
saved, being adopted to serve as 
slaves." — Pontiac MS. 

" The remaining barges pro- 
ceeded up the river, and crossed to 
the house of Mr. Meloche, where 
Pontiac and his Ottawas were en- 
camped. The barges were landed, 
and, the women having arranged 
themselves in two rows, with clubs 
and sticks, the prisoners were taken 
out, one by one, and told to run the 
gantlet to Pontiac's lodge. Of sixty - 
six persons who were brought to the 
shore, sixty-four ran the gantlet, and 
were all killed. One of the remain- 
ing two, who had had his thigh 
broken in the firing from the shore, 
and who was tied to his seat and 
compelled to row, had become by 
this time so much exhausted that he 
could not help himself. He was 
thrown out of the boat and killed 
with clubs. The other, when di- 
rected to run for the lodge, suddenly 
fell upon his knees in the water, and 
having dipped his hand in the water, 
he made the sign of the cross on his 
forehead and breast, and darted out 
in the stream. An expert swimmer 
from the Indians followed him, and, 
having overtaken him, seized him by 
the hair, and crying out, 4 You seem 
to love water ; you shall have enough 
of it,' he stabbed the poor fellow, 
who sunk to rise no more." — Gouin's 
Account, MS. 



238 FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS. [Chap. XIII. 

fluttering from the end of a pole. It was but 
too clear that some new disaster had befallen; and 
in truth, before nightfall, one La Brosse, a Canadian, 
came to the gate with the tidings that Fort San- 
dusky had been taken, and all its garrison slain or 
made captive. 1 This post had been attacked by the 
band of Wyandots living in its neighborhood, aided 
by a detachment of their brethren from Detroit. 
Among the few survivors of the slaughter was the 
commanding officer, Ensign Paully, who had been 
brought prisoner to Detroit, bound hand and foot, 
and solaced on the passage with the expectation of 
being burnt alive. On landing near the camp of 
Pontiac, he was surrounded by a crowd of Indians, 
chiefly squaws and children, who pelted him with 
stones, sticks, and gravel, forcing him to dance and 
sing, though by no means in a cheerful strain. A 
worse infliction seemed in store for him, when hap- 
pily an old woman, whose husband had lately died, 
chose to adopt him in place of the deceased warrior. 
Seeing no alternative but the stake, Paully accepted 
the proposal ; and having been first plunged in the 
river, that the white blood might be washed from 
his veins, he was conducted to the lodge of the 
widow, and treated thenceforth with all the consider- 
ation due to an Ottawa warrior. 

Gladwyn soon received a letter from him, through 
one of the Canadian inhabitants, giving a full ac- 
count of the capture of Fort Sandusky. On the 
sixteenth of May — such was the substance of the 
communication — Paully was informed that seven In- 
dians were waiting at the gate to speak with him. 
As several of the number were well known to him, 



1 Pontiac MS. 



Chap. XIII.] 



FORT SAXDUSKY. 



239 



lie ordered them, without hesitation, to be admitted. 
Arrived at his quarters, two of the treacherous vis- 
itors seated themselves on each side of the command- 
ant, while the rest were disposed in various parts 
of the room. The pipes were lighted, and the con- 
versation began, when an Indian, who stood in the 
doorway, suddenly made a signal by raising his head. 
Upon this, the astonished officer was instantly pounced 
upon and disarmed ; while, at the same moment, a 
confused noise of shrieks and yells, the firing of 
guns, and the hurried tramp of feet, sounded from 
the area of the fort without. It soon ceased, how- 
ever, and Paully, led by his captors from the room, 
saw the parade ground strown with the corpses of 
his murdered garrison. At nightfall, he was con- 
ducted to the margin of the lake, where several 
birch canoes lay hi readiness ; and as, amid thick 
darkness, the party pushed out from shore, the cap- 
tive saw the fort, lately under his command, bursting 
on all sides into sheets of name. 1 

Soon after these tidings of the loss of Sandusky, 
Gladwyns garrison heard the scarcely less unwel- 
come news that the strength of their besiegers had 
been reenforced by two strong bands of Ojibwas. 
Pontiac's forces in the vicinity of Detroit now 
amounted, according to Canadian computation, to 
about eight hundred and twenty warriors. Of these, 
two hundred and fifty were Ottawas, commanded by 
himself in person ; one hundred and fifty were Pot- 
tawattamies, under Ninivay; fifty were Wyandots, 
under Takee ; two hundred were Ojibwas, under 

i MS. Official Document — Report Major GladTsyn to Sir Jeffrey Am- 
of the Loss of the Posts in the Indian herst, July 8, 1763. 
Country, enclosed in a letter from 



240 FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS. [Chap. XTfl. 

Wasson; and added to these were a hundred and 
seventy of the same tribe, under their chief, Sekahos. 1 
As the warriors brought their squaws and children 
with them, the whole number of savages congregated 
about Detroit no doubt exceeded three thousand ; 
and the neighboring fields and meadows must have 
presented a picturesque and stirring scene. 

The sleepless garrison, worn by fatigue and ill 
fare, and harassed by constant petty attacks, were 
yet farther saddened by the news of disaster which 
thickened from every quarter. Of all the small 
posts scattered at wide intervals through the vast 
wilderness to the westward of Xiagara and Fort 
Pitt, it soon appeared that Detroit alone had been 
able to sustain itself. For the rest, there was but 
one unvaried tale of calamity and ruin. On the 
fifteenth of June, a number of Pottawattamies were 
seen approaching the gate of the fort, bringing with 
them four English prisoners, who proved to be En- 
sign Schlosser, lately commanding at St. Joseph's, 
together with three private soldiers. The Indians 
wished to exchange them for several of their own 
tribe, who had been for nearly two months prisoners 
in the fort. After some delay, this was effected, and 
the garrison then learned the unhappy fate of their 
comrades at St. Joseph's. This post stood at the 
mouth of the Eiver St. Joseph's, near the head of 
Lake Michigan, a spot which had long been the site 
of a Roman Catholic mission. Here, among the 
forests, swamps, and ocean-like waters, at an unmeas- 
ured distance from any abode of civilized man, the 
daring and indefatigable Jesuits had labored more 



i Pontiac MS. 



Chap. XIII] FOST ST. JOSEPH. 241 

than half a century for the spiritual good of the 
Pottawattarnies, who lived in great numbers near the 
margin of the lake. As early as the year 1712, as 
Father Marest informs us, the mission was in a 
thriving state, and around it had gathered a little 
colony of the forest-loving Canadians. Here, too, 
the French government had established a military 
post, whose garrison, at the period of our narrative, 
had been supplanted by Ensign Schlosser, with his 
command of fourteen men, a mere handful, in the 
heart of a wilderness swarming with insidious en- 
emies. They seem, however, to have apprehended no 
clanger, when, on the twenty-fifth of May, early in 
the morning, the officer was informed that a large 
party of the Pottawattarnies of Detroit had come to 
pay a visit to their relatives at St. Joseph's. Imme- 
diately after, a Canadian came in with intelligence 
that the fort was surrounded by Indians, who evi- 
dently had hostile intentions. At this, Schlosser ran 
out of the apartment, and crossing the parade, which 
was full of Indians and Canadians, hastily entered 
the barracks. These w^ere also crowded with savages, 
very insolent and disorderly. Calling upon his ser- 
geant to get the men under arms, he hastened out 
again to the parade, and endeavored to muster the 
Canadians together ; but while busying himself with 
these somewhat unwilling auxiliaries, he heard a wild 
cry from within the barracks. Instantly all the In- 
dians in the fort rushed to the gate, tomahawked 
the sentinel, and opened a free passage to their com- 
rades without. In less than two minutes, as the 
officer declares, the fort w T as plundered, eleven men 
were killed, and himself, with the three survivors, 
made prisoners, and bound fast. They then con- 
31 u 



242 



FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS. [Chap. XIIL 



ducted him to Detroit, where he was exchanged, as 
we have already seen. 1 

Three days after these tidings reached Detroit, 
Father Jonois, a Jesuit priest of the Ottawa mission 
near Michillimackmac, came to Pontiac's camp, to- 
gether with the son of Minavavana, great chief of 
the Ojibwas, and several other Indians. On the fol- 
lowing morning, he appeared at the gate of the fort, 
bringing a letter from Captain Etherington, com- 
mandant at Michillhnacldnac. The commencement 
of the letter was as follows: — 

" Michiilimackinac, 12 June, 1763. 

" Sir : 

" Notwithstanding what I wrote you in my last, 
that all the savages were arrived, and that every 
thing seemed in perfect tranquillity, yet on the fourth 
instant, the Chippeways, who live in a plain near 
this fort, assembled to play ball, as they had done 
almost every day since their arrival. They played 
from morning till noon; then, throwing their ball 
close to the gate, and observing Lieutenant Lesiey 
and me a few paces out of it, they came behind 
us, seized and carried us into the woods. 

"In the mean time, the rest rushed into the fort, 
where they found their squaws, whom they had pre- 
viously planted there, with their hatchets hid under 
their blankets, which they took, and in an instant 
killed Lieutenant Jamet, and fifteen rank and file, 
and a trader named Tracy. They wounded two, and 
took the rest of the garrison prisoners, five of whom 
they have since killed. 

i Loss of ths Posts in the Indian Country, MS. 



Chap. XIH-l 



EORT OUATANON. 



243 



" They made prisoners all the English traders, and 
robbed them of every thing they had; but they 
offered no violence to the persons or property of 
any of the Frenchmen." 

Captain Etherington next related some particulars 
of the massacre at Michillimackinac, sufficiently star- 
tling, as will soon appear. He spoke in high terms 
of the character and conduct of Father Jonois, and 
requested that Gladwyn would send all the troops 
he could spare up Lake Huron, that the post might 
be recaptured from the Indians, and garrisoned afresh. 
Gladwyn, being scarcely able to defend himself, could 
do nothing for the relief of his brother officer, and 
the Jesuit set out on his long and toilsome canoe voy- 
age back to Michillimackinac. 1 The loss of this place 
was a very serious misfortune, for, next to Detroit, 
it was the most important post on the upper lakes. 

The next news which came in was that of the 
loss of Ouatanon, a fort situated upon the Wabash, 
a little below the site of the present town of La 
Fayette. Gladwyn received a letter from its com- 
manding officer, Lieutenant Jenkins, informing him 
that, on the first of June, he and several of his men 
had been made prisoners by stratagem, on which the 
rest of the garrison had surrendered. The Indians, 
however, apologized for their conduct, declaring that 
they acted contrary to their own inclinations, and 
that the surrounding tribes had compelled them to 
take up the hatchet. 2 These excuses, so consolatory 

i Pontiac MS. we are not in much better, for this 

" Ouatanon, June 1st, 1763. morning the Indians sent for me, to 

" Sir : speak to me, and Immediately bound 

" I have heard of your situation, me, when I got to their Cabbin, and 

which gives me great Pain ; indeed, I soon found some of my Soldiers in 



244 FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS. [Chap. Xm. 

to the sufferers, might probably have been founded 
in truth, for these savages were of a character less 
ferocious than many of the others, and as they were 
farther removed from the settlements, they had not 
felt to an equal degree the effects of English inso- 
lence and encroachment, 

Close upon these tidings came the news that Fort 
Miami was taken. This post, standing on the River 
Maumee, was commanded by Ensign Holmes ; and 
here I cannot but remark on the forlorn situation of 
these officers, isolated in the wilderness, hundreds of 
miles, hi some instances, from any congenial asso- 
ciates, separated from every human being except the 
rude soldiers under their command, and the white 
or red savages who ranged the surrounding woods. 
Holmes suspected the intention of the Indians, and 
was therefore on his guard, when, on the twenty- 
seventh of May, a young Indian girl, who lived with 
him, came to tell him that a squaw lay dangerously 
ill in a wigwam near the fort, and urged him to 
come to her relief. Having confidence in the girl, 



the same Condition : They told me 
Detroit, Miamis, and all them Posts 
were cut off, and that it was a Folly 
to make any Resistance, therefore 
desired me to make the few Soldiers, 
that were in the Fort, surrender, 
otherwise they would put us all to 
Death, in case one man was killed. 
They were to have fell on us and 
killed us all, last night, but Mr. Mai- 
songrille and Lorain gave them wam- 
pum not to kill us, & when they told 
the Interpreter that we were all to 
be killed, & he knowing the condi- 
tion of the Fort, beg'd of them to 
make us prisoners. They have put 
us into French houses, & both In- 
dians and French use us very well : 
All these Nations say they are very 



sorry, but that they were obliged to 
do it by the Other Nations. The 
Belt did not Arrive here 'till last 
night about Eight o' Clock. Mr. Lo- 
rain can inform you of all. Just 
now Received the News of St. Jo- 
seph's being taken, Eleven men killed 
and three taken Prisoners with the 
Officer : I have nothing more to say, 
but that I sincerely wish you a 
speedy succour, and that we may be 
able to Revenge ourselves on those 
that Deserve it. 

"I Remain, with my Sincerest 
wishes for your safety, 

" Your most humble servant, 
"Edw d Jenkins. 

" N. B. We expect to set off in a 
day or two for the Illinois." 



Chap. XIII.] 



FORT PRESQTJTSLE. 



245 



Holmes followed her out of the fort. Pitched at 
the edge of a meadow, hidden from view by an in- 
tervening spur of the woodland, stood a great num- 
ber of Indian wigwams. When Holmes came in 
sight of them, his treacherous conductress pointed 
out that in which the sick woman lay. He walked 
on without suspicion ; but, as he drew near, two guns 
flashed from behind the hut, and stretched him life- 
less on the grass. The shots were heard at the fort, 
and the sergeant rashly went out to learn the reason 
of the firing. He was immediately taken prisoner, 
amid exulting yells and whoopings. The soldiers in 
the fort climbed upon the palisades, to look out, 
when Godefroy, a Canadian, together with two other 
white men, made his appearance, and summoned 
them to surrender, promising that if they did so, 
their lives should be spared, but that otherwise they 
would all be killed without mercy. The men, being 
in great terror, and without a leader, soon threw open 
the gate, and gave themselves up as prisoners. 1 

Had detachments of Rogers' Rangers garrisoned 
these posts, or had they been held by such men as 
the Rocky Mountain trappers of the present day, 
wary, skilful, and almost ignorant of fear, some of 
them might, perhaps, have been saved; but the sol- 
diers of the 60th Regiment, though many of them 
were of provincial birth, were not qualified by their 
habits and discipline for this kind of service. 

The loss of PresquTsle will close this black cata- 
logue of calamity. Rumors of it first reached Detroit 
on the twentieth of June, and two days after, the 
garrison heard those dismal cries, announcing scalps 

i Loss of the Posts, MS. 



246 



FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS. [Chap. XIII. 



and prisoners, which, of late, had grown mournfully 
familiar to their ears. Indians were seen passing, in 
numbers, along the opposite bank of the river, lead- 
ing several English prisoners, who proved to be En- 
sign Christie, the commanding officer at Presqu'Isle, 
with those of his soldiers who survived. 

There had been hot fighting before Presqu'Isle 
was taken. Could courage have saved it, it would 
never have fallen. The fort stood near the site of 
the present town of Erie, on the southern shore of 
the lake which bears the same name. At one of its 
angles was a large blockhouse, a species of structure 
much used in the petty forest warfare of the day. It 
was two stories in height, and solidly built of mas- 
sive timber, the diameter of the upper story exceed- 
ing that of the lower by several feet, so that, through 
openings in the projecting floor of the former, the 
defenders could shoot down upon the heads of an 
enemy assailing the outer wall below. The roof, be- 
ing covered with shingles, might easily be set on fire; 
but to guard against this, there was an opening at 
the summit, through which the garrison, partially 
protected by a covering of plank, might pour down 
water upon the flames. This blockhouse stood on a 
projecting point of land, between the lake and a small 
brook which entered it nearly at right angles. Un- 
fortunately, the bank of the brook rose in a high, 
steep ridge, within forty yards of the blockhouse, thus 
affording a cover for assailants, while the bank of 
the lake offered similar facilities on another side. 

At early dawn on the fifteenth of June, the gar- 
rison of Presqu'Isle were first aware of the enemy's 
presence ; and when the sun rose, they saw themselves 
surrounded by two hundred Indians, chiefly from the 



Chap. XIII.] 



FORT PRESQUTSLE. 



247 



neighborhood of Detroit. At the first alarm, they 
abandoned the main body of the fort, and betook 
themselves to the blockhouse as a citadel. The In- 
dians, crowding together in great numbers, under cover 
of the rising ground, kept up a rattling fire, and not 
only sent their bullets into every loophole and crevice, 
but shot fire-arrows upon the roof, and threw balls 
of burning pitch against the walls. Again and again 
the building took fire, and again and again the flames 
were extinguished. The Indians now rolled logs to 
the top of the ridges, where they constructed three 
strong breastworks, from behind which they could dis- 
charge their shot and throw their fire-balls with still 
greater effect. Some of them tried to dart across the 
intervening space, and shelter themselves in the ditch 
which surrounded the fort; but all of these were 
killed or wounded in the attempt. And now 7 the de- 
fenders could see the Indians throwing up earth and 
stones, behind one of the breastworks. Their impla- 
cable foes were laboring to undermine the block- 
house, a sure and insidious expedient, against which 
there was no defence. There was little leisure to re- 
flect on this new peril; for another more imminent 
and horrible soon threatened them. The barrels of 
water, always kept in the blockhouse, were nearly emp- 
tied in extinguishing the frequent fires; and though 
there was a well in the parade ground, yet to ap- 
proach it would be certain death. The only resource 
was to dig one in the blockhouse itself. The floor 
was torn up, and while some of the men fired their 
heated muskets from the loopholes, to keep the ene- 
my in check, the rest labored with desperate energy 
at this toilsome and cheerless task. Before it was 
half completed, the roof was again on fire, and all 



248 



FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS. [Chap. XIII. 



the water that remained was poured down to extin- 
guish it. In a few moments, the cry of fire was once 
more raised, when a soldier, at imminent risk of his 
life, tore off the burning shingles, and averted the 
danger. 

By this time it was evening. From earliest day- 
break, the little garrison had fought and toiled with- 
out a moment's rest. Nor did the darkness bring 
relief, for guns flashed all night long from the Indian 
intrenchments. They seemed resolved to wear out 
the obstinate defenders by fatigue; and while some, 
in their turn, were sleeping, the rest kept up the as- 
sault. Morning brought fresh dangers. The well 
had been for some time complete; and it was happy 
that it was so, for by this time the enemy had pushed 
their subterranean approaches as far as the house of 
the commanding officer, which they immediately set 
on fire. It stood on the parade, close to the block- 
house; and, as the pine logs blazed fiercely, the de- 
fenders were nearly stifled by the heat. The outer 
wall of the blockhouse scorched, blackened, and at 
last burst into flame. Still the undespairing garrison 
refused to yield. Passing up water from the well be- 
low, they poured it down upon the fire, which at 
length was happily subdued, while the blazing house 
soon sank into a glowing heap of embers. The men 
were now, to use the words of their officer, " exhausted 
to the greatest extremity ; " yet they kept up their for- 
lorn and desperate defence, toiling and fighting with- 
out pause, within the wooden walls of their dark 
prison, where the close and heated atmosphere was 
clogged with the smoke of gunpowder. The fire 
on both sides continued through the day, and did 
not cease till midnight ; at which hour a voice was 



Chap. XIII] POET PEESQU'ISLE. 249 

heard to call out, in French, from the enemy's in- 
trenchments, warning the garrison that farther resist- 
ance would be useless, since preparations were made 
for setting the blockhouse on fire, above and below 
at once. Christie demanded if there were any among 
them who spoke English ; upon which, a man in the 
Indian dress came out from behind the breastwork. 
He was a soldier, who, having been made prisoner early 
in the French war, had since lived among the savages, 
and now espoused their cause, fighting with them 
against his own countrymen. He said that if they 
yielded, their lives should be spared, but if they fought 
longer, they must all be burnt alive. Christie, resolv- 
ing to hold out as long as a shadow of hope re- 
mained, told them to wait till morning for his answer. 
They assented, and suspended their fire; and while 
some of the garrison watched, the rest sank exhausted 
into a deep sleep. When morning came, Christie sent 
out two soldiers, as if to treat with the enemy, but, 
in reality, to learn the truth of what they had said 
respecting their preparations to burn the blockhouse. 
On reaching the breastwork, the soldiers made a sig- 
nal, by which their officer saw that his worst fears 
were well founded. In pursuance of their orders, 
they then demanded that two of the principal chiefs 
should meet with Christie midway between the breast- 
work and the blockhouse. The chiefs appeared ac- 
cordingly, and Christie, going out, yielded up the 
little fortress which he had defended with such in- 
domitable courage; having first stipulated that the 
lives of all the garrison should be spared, and that 
they might retire unmolested to the nearest post. 
The soldiers, pale, wild, and haggard, like men who 
had passed through a fiery ordeal, now issued from 
32 



250 



FATE OF THE FOREST GARRISONS. [Chap. XIII. 



the blockhouse, whose sides were pierced with bullets 
and scorched with fire. In spite of the capitulation, 
they were surrounded and seized, and, having been 
detained for some time in the neighborhood, were 
sent as prisoners to Detroit, w T here Ensign Christie 
soon after made his escape, and gained the fort in 
safety. 1 

After Presqu'Isle was taken, the neighboring little 
posts of Le Bceuf and Venango shared its fate, while 
farther southward, at the forks of the Ohio, a host 
of Delaware and Shawanoe warriors were gathering 
around Fort Pitt, and blood and havoc reigned along 
the whole frontier. 



i Loss of the Posts, MS. Pontiac MS. Christie's Report, MS. 



CHAPTER XIY. 



THE INDIANS CONTINUE TO BLOCKADE DETROIT, 

We return once more to Detroit and its beleaguered 
garrison. On the nineteenth of June, a rumor reached 
them that one of the vessels had been seen near Tur- 
key Island, some miles below the fort, but that, the 
wind failing her, she had dropped down with the cur- 
rent, to wait a more favorable opportunity. It may 
be remembered that this vessel had, several weeks be- 
fore, gone down Lake Erie to hasten the advance of 
Cuyler's expected detachment. Passing these troops 
on her way, she had held her course to Niagara ; and 
here she had remained until the return of Cuyler, with 
the remnant of his men, made known the catastrophe 
that had befallen him. This officer, and the survivors 
of his party, with a few other troops spared from the 
garrison of Niagara, were ordered to embark on board 
of her, and make the best of their way back to De- 
troit. They had done so, and now, as we have seen, 
were almost within sight of the fort; but the critical 
part of the undertaking yet remained. The river 
channel was in some places narrow, and more than 
eight hundred Indians were on the alert to intercept 
their passage. 

For several days, the officers at Detroit heard noth- 
ing farther of the vessel, when, on the twenty-third, 
a great commotion was visible among the Indians, 



252 



BLOCKADE OF DETEOIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



large parties of whom were seen to pass along the 
outskirts of the woods, behind the fort. The cause 
of these movements was unknown till evening, when 
M. Baby came in with intelligence that the vessel 
was again attempting to ascend the river, and that 
all the Indians had gone to attack her. Upon this, 
two cannon were tired, that those on board might 
know that the fort still held out. This done, all re- 
mained in much anxiety awaiting the result. 

The schooner, late that afternoon, began to move 
slowly upward, with a gentle breeze, between the 
main shore and the long-extended margin of Fight- 
ing Island. About sixty men were crowded on board, 
of whom only ten or twelve were visible on deck, 
the officer having ordered the rest to lie hidden 
below, in hopes that the Indians, encouraged by 
this apparent weakness, might make an open attack. 
Just before reaching the narrowest part of the 
channel, the wind died away, and the anchor was 
dropped. Ininiediately above, and within gunshot of 
the vessel, the Indians had made a breastwork of 
logs, carefully concealed by bushes, on the shore of 
Turkey Island. Here they lay in force, waiting for 
the schooner to pass. Ignorant of this, but still cau- 
tious and wary, the crew kept a strict watch from the 
moment the sun went down. Hours wore on, and 
notliing had broken the deep repose of the night. 
The current gurgled with a monotonous sound around 
the bows of the schooner, and on either hand the 
wooded shores lay amid the obscurity, black and silent 
as the grave. At length, the sentinel could discern, 
in the distance, various moving objects upon the dark 
surface of the water. The men were ordered up from 
below, and all took their posts in perfect silence. 



Chap.XIV.1 ATTACK ON THE SCHOONER. 253 

The blow of a hammer on the mast was to be the 
signal to fire. The Indians, gliding stealthily over 
the water in their birch canoes, had, by this time, 
approached within a few rods of their fancied prize, 
when suddenly the dark side of the slumbering ves- 
sel burst into a blaze of cannon and musketry, which 
illumined the night like a flash of lightning. Grape 
and musket shot new tearing among the canoes, de- 
stroying several of them, killing fourteen Indians, 
wounding as many more, and driving the rest in 
consternation to the shore. 1 Eecovering from their 
surprise, they began to fire upon the vessel from 
behind their breastwork; upon which she weighed 
anchor, and dropped down once more beyond their 
reach, into the broad river below. Several days 
afterwards, she again attempted to ascend. This 
time, she met with better success; for, though the 
Indians fired at her constantly from the shore, no 
man was hurt, and at length she left behind her the 
perilous channels of the islands. As she passed the 
Wyandot village, she sent a shower of grape among 
its yelping inhabitants, by which several were killed; 
and then, furling her sails, lay peacefully at anchor 
by the side of her companion vessel, abreast of the 
fort. 

The schooner brought to the garrison a much 
needed supply of men, ammunition, and provision. 
She brought, also, the interesting and important 
tidings that peace was at length concluded between 
France and England. The bloody and momentous 
struggle of the French war, which had shaken 
North America since the year 1755, had indeed been 



i Pontiac MS. 



V 



254 



BLOCKADE OF DETROIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



virtually closed by the victory on trie Plains of 
Abraham, and the junction of the three British 
armies at Montreal. Yet up to this time, its embers 
had continued to burn, till, at length, peace was com- 
pletely established by formal treaty between the hos- 
tile powers. France resigned her ambitious project of 
empire in America, and ceded Canada and the region 
of the lakes to her successful rival. By this treaty, 
the Canadians of Detroit were placed in a new posi- 
tion. Hitherto they had been, as it were, prisoners 
on capitulation, neutral spectators of the quarrel be- 
tween their British conquerors and the Indians ; but 
now their allegiance was transferred from the crown 
of France to that of Britain, and they were subjects 
of the English king. To many of them, the change 
was extremely odious, for they cordially hated the 
British. They went about among the settlers and 
the Indians, declaring that the pretended news of 
peace was only an invention of Major Gladwyn ; 
that the King of France would never abandon his 
children; and that a great French army was even 
then ascending the St. Lawrence, while another was 
approaching from the country of the Illinois. 1 This 
oft-repeated falsehood was implicitly believed by the 
Indians, who continued firm in faith that their 
great father was about to awake from his sleep, 
and wreak his vengeance upon the insolent English, 
who had intruded on his domain. 

Pontiac himself clung fast to this delusive hope; 
yet he was greatly vexed at the safe arrival of 
the vessel, and the assistance she had brought to 
the obstinate defenders of Detroit. He exerted 



1 MS. Letter — Gladwyn to Amherst, July 8. 



Chap. XIV.] PONTIAC'S COUNCIL WITH THE FRENCH. 255 

himself with, fresh zeal to gain possession of the 
place, and attempted to terrify Gladwyn into sub- 
mission. He sent a message, in which he strongly 
urged him to surrender, adding, by way of stimulus, 
that eight hundred more Ojibwas were every day 
expected, and that, on their arrival, all his influence 
could not prevent them from taking the scalp of 
every Englishman in the fort. To this friendly ad- 
vice Gladwyn returned a very brief and contempt- 
uous answer. 

Pontiac, having long been anxious to gain the 
Canadians as auxiliaries in the war, now determined 
on a final effort to effect his object. For this pur- 
pose, he sent messages to the principal inhabitants, 
inviting them to meet him in council. In the Ot- 
tawa camp, there was a vacant spot, quite level, 
and encircled by the huts of the Indians. Here 
mats were spread for the reception of the dep- 
uties, who soon convened, and took their seats in a 
wide ring. One part was occupied by the Cana- 
dians, among whom were several whose withered, 
leathery features proclaimed them the patriarchs of 
the secluded little settlement. Opposite these sat 
the stern-visaged Pontiac, with his chiefs on either 
hand, while the intervening portions of the circle 
were filled by Canadians and Indians promiscuously 
mingled. Standing on the outside, and looking over 
the heads of this more dignified assemblage, was a 
motley throng of Indians and Canadians, half breeds, 
trappers, and voyageurs, in wild and picturesque, 
though very dirty attire. Conspicuous among them 
were numerous Indian dandies, a large class in 
every aboriginal community, where they hold about 
the same relative position as in civilized society. 



256 



BLOCKADE OF DETROIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



They were wrapped in trie gayest blankets, their 
necks adorned with beads, their cheeks daubed with 
vermilion, and their ears hung with pendants. They 
stood sedately looking on, with evident self-compla- 
cency, yet ashamed and afraid to take their places 
among the aged chiefs and warriors of repute. 

All was silent, and several pipes were passing 
round from hand to hand, when Pontiac rose, and 
threw down a war-belt at the feet of the Canadians. 

"My brothers," he said, "how long will you suf- 
fer this bad flesh to remain upon your lands ] I 
have told you before, and I now tell you again, that 
when I took up the hatchet, it was for your good. 
This year, the English must all perish throughout 
Canada. The Master of Life commands it, and you, 
who know him better than we, wish to oppose his 
will. Until now I have said nothing on this matter. 
I have not urged you to take part with us in the 
war. It would have been enough had you been con- 
tent to sit quiet on your mats, looking on, while we 
were fighting for you. But you have not done. so. 
You call yourselves our friends, and yet you assist 
the English with provision, and go about as spies 
among our villages. This must not continue. You 
must be either wholly French or wholly English. 
If you are French, take up that war-belt, and lift 
the hatchet with us ; but if you are English, then 
we declare war upon you. My brothers, I know 
this is a hard thing. We are all alike children of 
our great father the King of France, and it is hard 
to fight among brethren for the sake of dogs. But 
there is no choice. Look upon the belt, and let us 
hear your answer." 1 



i Pontiac MS. 



Chap. XIV.] PONTIAC'S COUNCIL WITH THE FKENCH. 257 

One of the Canadians, having suspected the pur- 
pose of Pontiac, had brought with him, not the 
treaty of peace, but a copy of the capitulation of 
Montreal with its dependencies, including Detroit. 
Pride, or some other motive, restrained him from 
confessing that the Canadians 1 were no longer chil- 
dren of the King of Prance, and he determined to 
keep up the old delusion that a French army was 
on its way to win back Canada, and chastise the 
English invaders. He began his speech in reply to 
Pontiac by professing great love for the Indians, 
and a strong desire to aid them in the war. "But, 
my brothers," he added, holding out the articles of 
capitulation, " you must first untie the knot with 
which our great father, the king, has bound us. In 
this paper, he tells all his Canadian children to sit 
quiet and obey the English until he comes, because 
he wishes to punish his enemies himself. We dare 
not disobey him, for he would then be angry with 
us. And you, my brothers, who speak of making 
war upon us if we do not do as you wish, do you 
think you could escape his wrath, if you should 
raise the hatchet against his French children] He 
would treat you as enemies, and not as friends, and 
you would have to fight both English and French 
at once. Tell us, my brothers, what can you reply 
to this?" 

Pontiac for a moment sat silent, mortified, and 
perplexed; but his purpose was not destined to be 
wholly defeated. "Among the French," says the 
writer of the diary, "were many infamous charac- 
ters, who, having no property, cared nothing what 
became of them." Those mentioned in these oppro- 
brious terms were a collection of trappers, voy- 
33 v* 



258 



BLOCKADE OF DETROIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



ageurs, and nondescript vagabonds of the forest, who 
were seated with the council, or stood looking on, 
variously attired in greasy shirts, Indian leggins, and 
red woollen caps. Not a few among them, however, 
had thought proper to adopt the style of dress and 
ornament peculiar to the red men, who were their 
usual associates, and appeared among their com- 
rades with paint rubbed on their cheeks, and feath- 
ers dangling from their hair. Indeed, they aimed to 
identify themselves with the Indians, a transforma- 
tion by which they gained nothing; for these rene- 
gade whites were held in light esteem, both by those 
of their own color and the savages themselves. 
They were for the most part a light and frivolous 
crew, little to be relied on for energy or stability ; 
though among them were men of hard and ruffian 
features, the ringleaders and bullies of the voy- 
ageurs, and even a terror to the Bourgeois 1 himself. 



i This name is always applied, 
among the Canadians of the north- 
west, to the conductor of a trading 
party, the commander in a trading 
fort, or, indeed, to any person in a 
position of authority. 

Extract from a Letter — Detroit, 
July 9, 1763, (Penn. Gaz. No. 
1808.) 

"Judge of the Conduct of the 
Canadians here, by the Behaviour of 
these few Sacres Bougres, I have 
mentioned ; I can 'assure you, with 
much Certainty, that there are but 
very few in the Settlement who are 
not engaged with the Indians in their 
damn'd Design; in short, Monsieur 
is at the Bottom of it ; we have not 
only convincing Proofs and Circum- 
stances, but undeniable Proofs of it. 
There are four or five sensible, hon- 
est Frenchmen in the Place, who 
have been of a great deal of Service 
to us, in bringing us Intelligence 
and Provisions, even at the Risque 



of their own Lives : I hope they will 
be rewarded for their good Services ; 
I hope also to see the others exalted 
on High, to reap the Fruits of their 
Labours, as soon as our Army ar- 
rives ; the Discoveries we have made 
of their horrid villianies, are almost 
incredible. But to return to the 
Terms of Capitulation : Pondiac pro- 
poses that we should immediately 
give up the Garrison, lay down our 
Arms, as the French, their Fathers, 
were obliged to do, leave the Can- 
non, Magazines, Merchants' Goods, 
and the two Vessels, and be escort- 
ed in Battoes, by the Indians, to Ni- 
agara. The Major returned Answer, 
that the General had not sent him 
there to deliver up the Fort to In- 
dians, or any body else ; and that he 
would defend it whilst he had a 
single man to fight alongside of him. 
Upon this, Hostilities recommenced, 
since which Time, being two Months, 
the whole Garrison, Officers, Soldiers, 



Chap. XIV.] 



FEAST OF DOGS. 



259 



It was one of these who now took up the war-belt, 
and declared that he and his comrades were ready to 
raise the hatchet for Pontiac. The better class of 
Canadians were shocked at this proceeding, and vainly 
protested against it. Pontiac, on his part, was much 
pleased at such an accession to his forces, and he 
and his chiefs shook hands, in turn, with each of 
their new auxiliaries. The council had been protract- 
ed to a late hour. It was dark before the assem- 
bly dissolved, " so that," as the chronicler observes, 
" these new Indians had no opportunity of displaying 
their exploits that day." They remained in the In- 
dian camp all night, being afraid of the reception 
they might meet among their fellow-whites in the set- 
tlement. The whole of the following morning was 
employed in giving them a feast of welcome. For 
this entertainment a large number of dogs were killed, 
and served up to the guests ; none of whom, accord- 
ing to the Indian custom on such formal occasions, 
were permitted to take their leave until they had 
eaten the whole of the enormous portion placed be- 
fore them. 

Pontiac derived little advantage from his Canadian 
allies, most of whom, fearing the resentment of the 
English and the other inhabitants, fled, before the war 
was over, to the country of the Illinois. 1 On the night 
succeeding the feast, a party of the renegades, joined 
by about an equal number of Indians, approached 

Merchants and Servants, have been ference ; judge what a Figure we 

upon the Ramparts every Night, not make on the Works." 
one having slept in a House, except The writer of the above letter is 

the Sick and Wounded in the Hos- much too sweeping and indiscrim- 

pital. inate in his denunciation of the 

" Our Fort is extremely large, con- French, 
sidering our Numbers, the Stockade 1 Croghan, Journal. See Butler, 

being above 1000 Paces in Circum- Hist. Kentucky, 463. 



260 



BLOCKADE OF DETROIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



the fort, and intrenched themselves, in order to fire 
upon the garrison. At daybreak, they were observed, 
the gate was thrown open, and a file of men, headed 
by Lieutenant Hay, sallied to dislodge them. This 
was effected without much difficulty. The Canadians 
fled with such despatch, that all of them escaped un- 
hurt, though two of the Indians were shot. 

It happened that among the English was a soldier 
who had been prisoner, for several years, among the 
Delawares, and who, while he had learned to hate 
the whole race, at the same time had acquired many 
of their habits and practices. He now ran forward, 
and, kneeling on the body of one of the dead sav- 
ages, tore away the scalp, and shook it, with an exult- 
ing cry, towards the fugitives. 1 This act, as afterwards 
appeared, excited great rage among the Indians. 

Lieutenant Hay and his party, after their success- 
ful sally, had retired to the fort ; when, at about four 
o'clock in the afternoon, a man was seen running to- 
wards it, closely pursued by Indians. On his arriving 
within gunshot distance, they gave over the chase, 
and the fugitive came panting beneath the walls, 
where a wicket was flung open to receive him. He 
proved to be the commandant of Sandusky, who, hav- 
ing, as before mentioned, been adopted by the Indians, 
and married to an old squaw, now seized the first 
opportunity of escaping from her embraces. 

Through him, the garrison learned the unhappy 
tidings that Major Campbell was killed. This gen- 
tleman, from his high personal character, no less than 
his merit as an officer, was held in general esteem ; and 
his fate excited a feeling of anger and grief among all 



1 Pontiac MS. 



Chap. XIV.] DEATH OF MAJOR CAMPBELL. 



261 



the English in Detroit. It appeared that the Indian 
killed and scalped, in the skirmish of that morning, 
was nephew to Wasson, chief of the Ojibwas. On 
hearing of his death, the enraged uncle had imme- 
diately blackened his face in sign of revenge, called 
together a party of his followers, and repairing to the 
house of Meloche, where Major Campbell was kept 
prisoner, had seized upon him, and bound him fast 
to a neighboring fence, where they shot him to death 
with arrows. Others say that they tomahawked him 
on the spot ; but all agree that his body was mutilat- 
ed in a barbarous manner. His heart is said to have 
been eaten by his murderers, to make them coura- 
geous, a practice not uncommon among Indians, after 
killing an enemy of acknowledged bravery. The 
corpse was thrown into the river, and afterwards 
brought to shore and buried by the Canadians. Ac- 
cording to one authority, Pontiac was privy to this 
act ; but a second, equally credible, represents him as 
ignorant of it, and declares that Wasson was com- 
pelled to fly to his own village at Saginaw, to escape 
the rage of the offended chief. 1 Lieutenant M'Dougal, 
Campbell's fellow in captivity, had previously found 
means of escaping. 

The two armed schooners, anchored opposite the 
fort, were now become objects of awe and aversion 
to the Indians. This is not to be wondered at, for, 
besides aiding in the defence of the place, by sweep- 
ing two sides of it with their fire, they often caused 
great terror and annoyance to the besiegers. Several 
times they had left their anchorage, and, taking up a 
convenient position, had battered the Indian camps 



1 Gouin's Account, MS. St. Aubin's Account, MS. 



262 



BLOCKADE OF DETROIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



and villages with no little effect. Once in particular, 
— and this was the first attempt of the kind, — Glad- 
wyn himself, with several of his officers, had embarked 
on board the smaller vessel, while a fresh breeze was 
blowing from the north-west. The Indians, on the 
. banks, stood watching her as she tacked from shore 
to shore, and pressed their hands against their mouths 
ir amazement, thinking that magic power alone could 
enable her thus to make her way against wind and 
current. 1 Making a long reach from the opposite 
shore, she came on directly towards the camp of 
Pontiac, her sails swelling, her masts leaning over 
till the black muzzles of her guns almost touched 
the river. The Indians watched her in astonishment. 
On she came, till their fierce hearts exulted in the 
idea that she would run ashore within their clutches, 
when suddenly a shout of command was heard on 
board, her progress was arrested, she rose upright, and 
her sails flapped and fluttered as if tearing loose from 
their fastenings. Steadily she came round, broadside 
to the shore ; then, leaning once more to the wind, 
bore away gallantly on the other tack. She did not 
go far. The wondering spectators, quite at a loss to 
understand her movements, soon heard the hoarse 
rattling of her cable, as the anchor dragged it out, 
and saw her furling her vast white wings. As they 
looked unsuspectingly on, a puff of smoke was emitted 
from her side; a loud report followed; then another 
and another ; and the balls, rushing over their heads, 
flew through the midst of their camp, and tore wildly 
among the thick forest-trees beyond. All was terror 
and consternation. The startled warriors bounded away 



i Penn. Gaz. No. 1808. 



Chap. XIV.] 



FIRE RAFTS. 



263 



on all sides; the squaws snatched up their children, 
and fled screaming; and, with a general chorus of 
yells, the whole encampment scattered in such haste, 
that little damage was done, except knocking to pieces 
their frail cabins of bark. 1 

This attack was followed by others of a similar 
kind; and now the Indians seemed resolved to turn 
all their energies to the destruction of the vessel 
which caused them such annoyance. On the night 
of the tenth of July, they sent down a blazing raft, 
formed of two boats, secured together with a rope, 
and filled with pitch pine, birch bark, and other com- 
bustibles, which, by good fortune, missed the vessel, 
and floated down the stream without doing injury. 
All was quiet throughout the following night; but 
about two o'clock on the morning of the twelfth, the 
sentinel on duty saw a glowing spark of fire on the 
surface of the river, at some distance above. It grew 
larger and brighter; it rose in a forked flame, and 
at length burst forth into a broad conflagration. In 
this instance, too, fortune favored the vessel; for the 
raft, which was larger than the former, passed down 
between her and the fort, brightly gilding her tra- 
cery of ropes and spars, lighting up the old palisades 
and bastions of Detroit with the clearness of day, 
disclosing the white Canadian farms and houses 
along the shore, and revealing the dusky margin of 
the forest behind. It showed, too, a dark group of 
naked spectators, who stood on the bank to w T atch 
the effect of their artifice, when a cannon flashed, a 
loud report broke the stillness, and before the smoke 
of the gun had risen, these curious observers had 



1 Pontiac MS. 



264 



BLOCKADE OF DETEOIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



vanished. The raft floated down, its flames crackling 
and glaring wide through the night, until it was 
burnt to the water's edge, and its last hissing em- 
bers were quenched in the river. 

Though twice defeated, the Indians would not aban- 
don their plan, but, soon after this second failure, be- 
gan another raft, of different construction from the 
former, and so large that they thought it certain to 
take effect. Gladwyn, on his part, provided boats 
which were moored by chains at some distance above 
the vessels, and made other preparations of defence, 
so effectual that the Indians, after working four days 
upon the raft, gave over their undertaking as useless. 
About this time, a party of Shawanoe and Delaware 
Indians arrived at Detroit, and were received by the 
Wyandots with a salute of musketry, which occa- 
sioned some alarm among the English, who knew 
nothing of its cause. They reported the progress of 
the war in the south and east • and,, a few days 
after, an Abenaki, from Lower Canada, also made 
his appearance, bringing to the Indians the flattering 
falsehood that their great father, the King of France, 
was at that moment advancing up the St. Lawrence 
with his army. It may here be observed, that the 
name of father, given to the Kings of France and 
England, was a mere title of courtesy or policy; for, 
in his haughty independence, the Indian yields sub- 
mission to no man. 

It was now between two and three months since 
the siege began ; and if one is disposed to think slight- 
ingly of the warriors whose numbers could avail so 
little against a handful of half-starved English and 
provincials, he has only to recollect, that where bar- 
barism has been arrayed against civilization, disorder 



Chap. XIV.] CHANGING TEMPER OF THE INDIANS. 



265 



against discipline, and ungoverned fury against con- 
siderate valor, such has seldom failed to be the result. 

At the siege of Detroit, the Indians displayed a 
high degree of comparative steadiness and persever- 
ance; and their history cannot furnish another in- 
stance of so large a force persisting so long in the 
attack of a fortified place. Their good conduct may 
be ascribed to their deep rage against the English, 
to their hope of speedy aid from the French, and 
to the controlling spirit of Pontiac, which held them 
to their work. The Indian is but ill qualified for 
such attempts, having too much caution for an as- 
sault by storm, and too little patience for a block- 
ade. The "Wyandots and Pottawattamies had shown, 
from the beginning, less zeal than the other na- 
tions ; and now, like children, they began to tire 
of the task they had undertaken. A deputation of 
the Wyandots came to the fort, and begged for 
peace, which was granted them ; but when the Pot- 
tawattamies came on the same errand, they insisted, 
as a preliminary, that some of their people, who were 
detained prisoners with the English, should first be 
given up. Gladwyn demanded, on his part, that the 
English captives known to be in their village should 
be brought to the fort, and three of them were ac- 
cordingly produced. As these were but a small part 
of the whole, the deputies were sharply rebuked for 
their duplicity, and told to go back for the rest. 
They withdrew angry and mortified; but, on the fol- 
lowing day, a fresh deputation of chiefs made their 
appearance, bringing with them six prisoners. Hav- 
ing repaired to the council-room, they were met by 
Gladwyn, attended only by one or two officers. The 
Indians detained in the fort were about to be given 
34 w 



266 



BLOCKADE OF DETROIT. 



[Chap. XIV. 



up, and a treaty concluded, when one of the prison- 
ers declared that there were several others still re- 
maining in the Pottawattamie village. Upon this, 
the conference was broken off, and the deputies 
ordered instantly to depart. On being thus a second 
time defeated, they were goaded to such a pitch of 
rage, that, as afterwards became known, they formed 
the desperate resolution of killing Gladwyn on the 
spot, and then making their escape in the best way 
they could; but, happily, at that moment the com- 
mandant observed an Ottawa among them, and, re- 
solving to seize him, called upon the guard without 
to assist in doing so. A file of soldiers entered, and 
the chiefs, seeing it impossible to execute their de- 
sign, withdrew from the fort, with black and sullen 
brows. A day or two afterwards, however, they re- 
turned with the rest of the prisoners, on which 
peace was granted them, and their people set at 
liberty. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE FIGHT OP BLOODY BRIDGE. 

From the time when peace was concluded with 
the Wyandots and Pottawattamies until the end of 
July, little worthy of notice took place at Detroit. 
The fort was still watched closely by the Ottawas 
and Ojibwas, who almost daily assailed it with petty 
attacks. In the mean time, unknown to the gar- 
rison, a strong reenforcement was coming to their 
aid. Captain Dalzell had left Niagara with twenty- 
two barges, bearing two hundred and eighty men, 
with several small cannon, and a fresh supply of 
provision and ammunition. 1 

Coasting along the south shore of Lake Erie, 
they soon reached PresquTsle, where they found the 
scorched and battered blockhouse so gallantly de- 
fended by Ensign Christie, and saw with surprise 
the mines and intrenchments made by the Indians 



i Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Sir J. Amherst to Sir W. Johnson. 

" New York, 16th June, 1763. 

''•Sir: 

"I am to thank you for your Let- 
ter of the 6th Instant, which I have 
this ^ moment Received, with some 
Advices from Niagara, concerning 
Ihe Motions of the Indians that Way, 
they having attacked a Detachment 
under the Command of Lieut. Cuy- 
ler of Hopkins's Rangers, who were 
on their Route towards the Detroit, 



and Obliged him to Return to Ni- 
agara, with (I am sorry to say) too 
few of his Men. 

" Upon this Intelligence, I have 
thought it Necessary to Dispatch 
Captain Dalyell, my Aid de Camp, 
with Orders to Carry with him all 
such Reinforcements as can possibly 
be collected, (having, at the same 
time, a due Attention to the Safety 
of the Principal Forts,) to Niagara, 
and to proceed to the Detroit, if 
Necessary, and Judged Proper." 



288 



THE FIGHT OP BLOODY BSEDGE. [Chap. XV. 



in assailing it. 1 Thence, proceeding on their voy- 
age, they reached Sandusky on the twenty-sixth of 
July; and here they marched inland to the neigh- 
boring Tillage of the TTvandots, which theY burnt 
to the ground, at the same time destroying the com, 
which this tribe, more provident than most of the 
others, had planted there hi the spring. Dalzell 
then steered northward for the mouth of the De- 
troit, which he reached on the evening of the 
twentv-eiffhth, and cautiously ascended under cover 
of night. " It was fortunate," writes Gladwyn, " that 
they were not discovered, in which case they must 
have been destroyed or taken, as the Indians, being 
emboldened by their late successes, fight much bet- 
ter than we could have expected." 

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, the whole 
country around Detroit was covered by a sea of fog* 
the precursor of a hot and sultry day; but at sun- 
rise, its surface began to heave and toss, and, parting 
at intervals, disclosed the dark and burnished surface 
of the river; then lightly rolling, fold upon fold, 
the mists melted rapidly away, the last remnant 
clinging sluggishly along the margin of the forests. 
Now, for the first time, the garrison could discern 
the approaching convoy. 2 Still they remained hi 
suspense, fearing lest it might have met the fate of 
the former detachment ; but a salute from the fort 
was answered by a swivel from the boats, and at 
once all apprehension passed away. The convoy soon 
reached a point in the river midway between the 
villages of the Wyandots and the Pottawattamies. 
About a fortnight before, as we have seen, these 



i Perm. Gaz. No. 1311. 



2 Pontiac MS. 



Chap. XV.] 



DALZELL BEACHES DETROIT. 



269 



capricious savages had made a treaty of peace, 
which they now thought fit to break, opening a hot 
fire upon the boats from either bank. 1 It was an- 
swered by swivels and musketry; but before the 
short engagement was over, fifteen of the English 
were killed or wounded. This danger passed, boat 
after boat came in to shore, and landed its men 
amid the cheers of the garrison. The detachment 
was composed of soldiers from the 55th and 80th 
Regiments, with twenty independent rangers, com- 
manded by Major Rogers ; and as the barracks in 
the place were too small to receive them, they were 
all quartered upon the inhabitants. 

Scarcely were these arrangements made, when 
a great smoke was seen rising from the Wyandot 
village across the river, and the inhabitants, appar- 
ently in much consternation, were observed paddling 
down stream with their household utensils, and even 
their dogs. It was supposed that they had aban- 
doned and burned their huts; but in truth, it was 
only an artifice of these Indians, who had set fire 
to some old canoes and other refuse piled in front 
of their village, after which the warriors, having 
concealed the women and children, returned and lay 
in ambush among the bushes, hoping to lure some 
of the English within reach of their guns. None 
of them, however, fell into the snare. 2 

Captain Dalzell was the same officer who was the 
companion of Israel Putnam in some of the most 
adventurous passages of that rough veteran's life ; 
but more recently he had acted as aide-de-camp to 
Sir Jeffrey Amherst. On the day of his arrival, he 

1 MS. Letter — Major Rogers to , Aug. 5. 

2 Pontiac MS. 



270 



THE FIGHT OF BLOODY BRIDGE. 



[Chap. XV. 



had a conference with Gladwyn, at the quarters of 
the latter, and strongly insisted that the time was 
come when an irrecoverable blow might be struck at 
Pontiac. He requested permission to march out on 
the following night, and attack the Indian camp. 
Gladwyn, better acquainted with the position of 
affairs, and perhaps more cautious by nature, was 
averse to the attempt; but Dalzell urged his request 
so strenuously that the commandant yielded to his 
representations, and gave a tardy consent. 1 

Pontiac had recently removed his camp from its 
old position near the mouth of Parent's Creek, and 
was now posted several miles above, behind a great 
marsh, which protected the Indian huts from the 
cannon of the vessel. On the afternoon of the thir- 
tieth, orders were issued and preparations made for 
the meditated attack. Through the inexcusable care- 
lessness of some of the officers, the design became 
known to a few Canadians, the bad result of which 
will appear in the sequel. 

About two o'clock on the morning of the thirty- 
first of July, the gates were thrown open in silence, 
and the detachment, two hundred and fifty in num- 
ber, passed noiselessly out. They filed two deep 
along the road, while two large bateaux, each bear- 
ing a swivel on the bow, rowed up the river abreast 
of them. Lieutenant Brown led the advanced guard 



1 Extract from a MS. Letter — that I "was of opinion he was too 

Major Gladwyn to Sir J. Amherst. much on his Guard to Effect it ; he 

„_ , ' . _ , then said he thought I had it in my 

Detroit, Aug. SJi, 1,63. pQwer fo ^ him a ^oke, and that 

"On the 31 st, Captain Dalyell if I did not Attempt it now, he would 

Requested, as a particular favor, that Run off, and I should never have 

I would give him the Command of a another Opportunity ; this induced 

Party, in order to Attempt the Sur- me to give in to the Scheme, con- 

prizal of Pontiac's Camp, under cover trary to my Judgement." 
of the Night, to which I answered 



Chap. XV.] 



PLAN OF A NIGHT ATTACK. 



271 



of twenty-five men; the centre was commanded by 
Captain Gray, and the rear by Captain Grant. The 
night was still, close, and sultry, and the men 
marched in light undress. On their right was the 
dark and gleaming surface of the river, with a mar- 
gin of sand mtervenhig, and on their left a succes- 
sion of Canadian houses, with barns, orchards, and 
cornfields, from whence the clamorous barking of 
watch-dogs saluted them as they passed. The inhab- 
itants, roused from sleep, looked from the windows 
in astonishment and alarm. An old man has told 
the writer how, when a child, he climbed on the 
roof of his father's house, to look down on the 
glimmering bayonets, and how, long after the troops 
had passed, their heavy and measured tramp sounded 
from afar, through the still night, Thus the Eng- 
lish moved forward to the attack, little thinking that, 
behind houses and enclosures, Indian scouts watched 
every yard of their progress — little suspecting that 
Pontiac, apprised by the Canadians of their plan, 
had broken up his camp, and was coming against 
them with all his warriors, armed and decorated for 
battle. 

A mile and a half from the fort, Parent's Creek, 
ever since that night called Bloody Run, descended 
through a wild and rough hollow, and entered the 
Detroit amid a growth of rank grass and sedge. 
Only a few rods from its mouth, the road crossed it 
by a narrow wooden bridge, not existing at the 
present day. Just beyond this bridge, the land rose 
in abrupt ridges, parallel to the stream. Along their 
summits were rude intrenchments made by Pontiac 
to protect his camp, which had formerly occupied 
the ground immediately beyond. Here, too, were 



272 



THE FIGHT OF BLOODY BEIDGE. 



[Chap. XV. 



many piles of firewood belonging to the Canadians, 
besides strong picket fences, enclosing orchards and 
gardens connected with the neighboring houses. Be- 
hind fences, wood-piles, and intrenchments, crouched 
an unknown number of Indian warriors with lev- 
elled gmis. They lay silent as snakes, for now they 
could hear the distant tramp of the approaching 
column. 

The sky was overcast, and the night exceedingly 
dark. As the English drew near the dangerous 
pass, they could discern the oft-mentioned house of 
Meloche upon a rising ground to the left, while in 
front the bridge was dimly visible, and the ridges 
beyond it seemed like a wall of undistinguished 
blackness. They pushed rapidly forward, not wholly 
unsuspicious of danger. The advanced guard were 
half way over the bridge, and the main body jttst 
entering upon it, when a horrible burst of yells rose 
in their front, and the Indian guns blazed forth in 
a general discharge. Half the advanced party were 
shot down ; the appalled survivors shrank back 
aghast. The confusion reached even the main body, 
and the whole recoiled together ; but Dalzell raised 
his clear voice above the din, advanced to the front, 
rallied the men, and led them forward to the attack. 1 
Again the Indians poured in their volley, and again 
the English hesitated; but Dalzell shouted from the 
van, and. in the madness of mingled rage and fear, 
they charged at a run across the bridge and up the 
heights beyond. Xot an Indian was there to op- 
pose them. In vain the furious soldiers sought their 
enemy behind fences and intrenchments. The active 



i Perm. Gaz. No. 1811 



Chap. XV.] 



EE TEE AT OF THE ENGLISH. 



273 



savages had fled; yet still their guns flashed thick 
through the gloom, and their war-cry rose with un- 
diminished clamor. The English pushed forward 
amid the pitchy darkness, quite ignorant of their 
way, and soon became involved in a maze of out- 
houses and enclosures. At every pause they made, 
the retiring enemy would gather to renew the attack, 
firing back hotly upon the front and flanks. To 
advance farther would be useless, and the only alter- 
native was to withdraw and wait for daylight. Cap- 
tain Grant, with his company, recrossed the bridge, 
and took up his station on the road. The rest fol- 
lowed, a small party remaining to hold the enemy in 
check while the dead and wounded were placed on 
board the two bateaux, which had rowed up to 
the bridge during the action. This task was com- 
menced amid a sharp fire from both sides; and be- 
fore it was completed, heavy volleys were heard from 
the rear, where Captain Grant was stationed. A 
great force of Indians had fired upon him from the 
house of Meloche and the neighboring orchards. 
Grant pushed up the hill, and drove them from the 
orchards at the point of the bayonet — drove them, 
also, from the house, and, entering the latter, found 
two Canadians within. These men told him that 
the Indians were bent on cutting off the English 
from the fort, and that they had gone in great num- 
bers to occupy the houses which commanded the 
road below. 1 It was now evident that instant retreat 
was necessary ; and the command being issued to 
that effect, the men fell back into marching order, 
and slowly began their retrograde movement. Grant 

i Detail of the Action of the 31st of July. See Gent. Mag. XXXIII. 480. 

35 



274 THE FIGHT OF BLOODY BRIDGE. [Chap. XV, 

was now in the van, and Dalzell at the rear. Some 
of the Indians followed, keeping up a scattering and 
distant fire ; and from time to time the rear faced 
about, to throw back a volley of musketry at the 
pursuers. Having proceeded in this manner for half 
a mile, they reached a point where, close upon the 
right, were many barns and outhouses, with strong- 
picket fences. Behind these, and in a newly-dug 
cellar close at hand, lay concealed a great multitude 
of Indians. They suffered the advanced party to 
pass unmolested; but when the centre and rear came 
opposite their ambuscade, they raised a frightful yell, 
and poured a volley among them. The men had 
well nigh fallen into a panic. The river ran close 
on their left, and the only avenue of escape lay 
along the road in front. Breaking their ranks, they 
crowded upon one another in blind eagerness to es- 
cape the storm of bullets ; and but for the presence 
of Dalzell, the retreat would have been turned into 
a flight. "The enemy," writes an officer who was 
in the fight, " marked him for his extraordinary 
bravery ; " and he had already received two severe 
wounds. Yet his exertions did not slacken for a 
moment. Some of the soldiers he rebuked, some he 
threatened, and some he beat with the flat of his 
sword ; till at length order was partially restored, 
and the fire of the enemy returned with effect. 
Though it was near daybreak, the dawn was ob- 
scured by thick fog, and little could be seen of the 
Indians, except the incessant flashes of their guns 
amid the mist, while hundreds of voices, mingled in 
one appalling yell, confused the faculties of the men, 
and drowned the shout of command. The enemy 
had taken possession of a house, from the windows 



Chap. XV.] 



DEATH OP EAEZEEE. 



275 



of which they fired down upon the English. Major 
Rogers, with some of Ms provincial rangers, burst 
the door with an axe, rushed in, and expelled them. 
Captain Gray was ordered to dislodge a large party 
from behind some neighboring fences. He charged 
them with his company, but fell, mortally wounded, 
in the attempt. 1 They gave way, however ; and now, 
die fire of the Indians being niuch diminished, the 
retreat was resumed. Xo sooner had the men faced 
about, than the savages came darting through the 
mist upon their Hank and rear, cutting down strag- 
glers, and scalping the fallen. At a little distance 
lay a sergeant of the 55 th, helplessly wounded, rais- 
ing himself on his hands, and gazing with a look 
of despair after his retiring comrades. The sight 
caught the eye of DalzelL That gallant soldier, hi 
the true spirit of heroism, ran out, amid the firing, 
to rescue the wounded man, when a shot struck 
him, and he fell dead. Few observed his fate, and 
none durst turn back to recover his body. The de- 
tachment pressed on, greatly harassed by the pur- 
suing Indians. Then loss would have been much 
more severe, had not Major Eogers taken possession 
of another house, which commanded the road, and 
covered the retreat of the party. 

He entered it with some of his own men, while 
many panic-stricken regulars broke in after him, hi 
their eagerness to gain a temporary shelter. The 
house was a large and strong one, and the women 
of the neighborhood had crowded into the cellar for 
refuge. While some of the soldiers looked in blind 
terror for a place of concealment, others seized upon 



1 Penn. Gaz. No. 1511. 



276 THE EIGHT OF BLOODY BKIDGE. [Chap. XV. 

a keg of whiskey in one of the rooms, and quaffed 
the liquor with eager thirst, while others, again, 
piled packs of furs, furniture, and all else within 
their reach, against the windows, to serve as a bar- 
ricade. Panting and breathless, their faces moist 
with sweat and blackened with gunpowder, they 
thrust their muskets through the openings, and fired 
out upon the whooping assailants. At intervals, a 
bullet new sharply whizzing through a crevice, strik- 
ing down a man, perchance, or rapping harmlessly 
against the partitions. Old Campau, the master of 
the house, stood on a trap-door to prevent the 
frightened soldiers from seeking shelter among the 
women in the cellar. A ball grazed his gray head, 
and buried itself in the wall, where a few years 
since it might still have been seen. The screams of 
the half-stifled women below, the quavering war- 
whoops without, the shouts and curses of the sol- 
diers, the groans and blaspheming of the wounded 
men, mingled in a scene of clamorous confusion, and 
it was long before the authority of Rogers could 
restore order. 1 

In the mean time, Captain Grant, with his ad- 
vanced party, had moved forward about half a mile, 
where he found some orchards and enclosures, by 
means of which he could maintain himself until the 
centre and rear should arrive. From this point he 
detached ail the men he could spare to occupy the 
houses below; and as soldiers soon began to come in 
from the rear, he was enabled to reenforce these de- 
tachments, until a complete line of communication 

1 Many particulars of the fight Williams, Esq. of Detroit, a con- 
at the house of Campau were re- nection of the Campau family, 
lated to me, on the spot, by John R. 



Chap. XV.] GRANT CONDUCTS THE RETREAT. 277 

was established with the fort, and the retreat effect- 
ually secured. Within an hour, the whole party had 
arrived, with the exception of Rogers and his men, 
who were quite unable to come off, being besieged 
in the house of Campau, by full two hundred In- 
dians. The two armed bateaux had gone down to 
the fort, laden with the dead and w T ounded. They 
now returned, and, in obedience to an order from 
Grant, proceeded up the river to a point opposite 
Campau' s house, where they opened a fire of swivels, 
which swept the ground above and below it, and 
completely scattered the assailants. Rogers and his 
party now came out, and marched down the road, 
to unite themselves with Grant. The two bateaux 
accompanied them closely, and, by a constant 
fire, restrained the Indians from making an attack. 
Scarcely had Rogers left the house at one door, 
when the enemy entered it at another, to obtain the 
scalps from two or three corpses left behind. Fore- 
most of them all, a withered old squaw rushed in, 
with a shrill scream, and, slashing open one of the 
dead bodies with her knife, scooped up the blood 
between her hands, and quaffed it with a ferocious 
ecstasy. 

Grant resumed his retreat as soon as Rogers had 
arrived, falling back from house to house, and joined 
in succession by the parties sent to garrison each. 
The Indians, in great numbers, stood whooping and 
yelling, at a vain distance, quite unable to make an 
attack, so well did Grant choose his positions, and 
so steadily and coolly conduct the retreat. About 
eight o'clock, after six hours of marching and com- 
bat, the detachment entered once more within the 
sheltering palisades of Detroit. 

x 



278 THE EIGHT OF BLOODY BBIDGE. [Chap XV. 

In this action, the English lost fifty-nine men, 
killed and wounded. The loss of the Indians could 
not be ascertained, but it certainly did not exceed 
fifteen or twenty. At the beginning of the fight, 
their numbers were probably much inferior to those 
of the English; but fresh parties were continually 
joining them, until seven or eight hundred warriors 
must have been present. 

The Ojibwas and Ottawas only formed the am- 
buscade at the bridge, under Pontiac's command; for 
the Wyandots and Pottawattamies came later to the 
scene of action, crossing the river in their canoes, 
or passing round through the woods behind the fort, 
to take part in the fray. 1 

In speaking of the fight of Bloody Bridge, an 
able writer in the Annual Register for the year 
1763 observes, with justice, that although in Eu- 
ropean warfare it would be deemed a mere skirmish, 
yet in a conflict with the American savages, it rises 
to the importance of a pitched battle ; since these 
people, being thinly scattered over a great extent of 
country, are accustomed to conduct their warfare by 
detail, and never take the field in any great force. 

The Indians were greatly elated by their success. 
Runners were sent out for several hundred miles, 
through the surrounding woods, to spread tidings of 
the victory; and reinforcements soon began to come 
in to swell the force of Pontiac. " Fresh warriors," 
writes Gladwyn, " arrive almost every day, and I 
believe that I shall soon be besieged by upwards of 

i MS. Letters — M'Donald to Dr. count, MS. Gouin's Account, MS. 

Campbell, Aug. 8. Gage to Lord St. Aubin's Account, MS. Peltier's 

Halifax, Oct. 12. Amherst to Lord Account, MS. Maxwell's Account, 

Egremont, Sept. 3. Meloche's Ac- MS., etc. 



Chap. XV.] ATTACK ON THE SCHOONER GLADWYN. 



279 



a thousand." The English, on their part, were well 
prepared for resistance, since the garrison now com- 
prised more than three hundred effective men; and 
no one entertained a doubt of their ultimate success 
in defending the place. Day after day passed on ; a 
few skirmishes took place, and a few men were 
killed, but nothing worthy of notice occurred, until 
the night of the fourth of September, at which time 
was achieved one of the most memorable feats which 
the chronicles of that day can boast. 

The schooner Gladwyn, the smaller of the two 
armed vessels so often mentioned, had been sent 
down to Niagara with letters and despatches. She 
was now returning, having on board Horst, her mas- 
ter, Jacobs, her mate, and a crew of ten men, all 
of whom were provincials, besides six Iroquois In- 
dians, supposed to be friendly to the English. On 
the night of the third, she entered the River Detroit; 
and in the morning the six Indians asked to be set 
on shore, a request which was foolishly granted. 
They disappeared in the woods, and probably re- 
ported to Fontiac's warriors the small numbers of 
the crew. The vessel stood up the river until night- 
fall, when, the wind failing, she was compelled to 
anchor about nine miles below the fort. The men 
on board watched with anxious vigilance; and as 
night came on, they listened to every sound which 
broke the stillness, from the strange cry of the night- 
hawk, wheeling round and round above their heads, 
to the bark of the fox from the woods on shore. 
The night set in with darkness so complete, that at 
the distance of a few rods nothing could be dis- 
cerned. Meantime, three hundred and fifty Indians, 
in their birch canoes, glided silently down with the 



280 



THE FIGHT OF BLOODY BRIDGE. [Chap. XV. 



current, and were close upon the vessel before they 
were seen. There was only time to fire a single 
cannon-shot among them, before they were beneath 
her bows, and clambering up her sides, holding their 
knives clinched fast between their teeth. The crew 
gave them a close fire of musketry, without any 
effect; then, flinging down their guns, they seized 
the spears and hatchets with which they were all 
provided, and met the assailants with such furious 
energy and courage, that in the space of two or 
three minutes they had killed and wounded more 
than twice their own number. But the Indians were 
only checked for a moment. The master of the ves- 
sel was killed, several of the crew were disabled, 
and the assailants were leaping over the bulwarks, 
when Jacobs, the mate, called out to blow up 
the schooner. This desperate command saved her 
and her crew. Some Wyandots, who had gamed the 
deck, caught the meaning of his words, and gave 
the alarm to their companions. Instantly every In- 
dian leaped overboard in a panic, and the whole 
were seen diving and swimming off in all di- 
rections, to escape the threatened explosion. The 
schooner was cleared of her assailants, who did not 
dare to renew the attack; and on the following 
morning she sailed for the fort, which she reached 
without molestation. Six of her crew escaped un- 
hurt. Of the remainder, two were killed, and four 
seriously wounded, while the Indians had seven men 
killed upon the spot, and nearly twenty wounded, 
of whom eight were known to have died within a 
few days after. As the whole action lasted but 
a few minutes, the fierceness of the struggle is suffi- 
ciently apparent from the loss on both sides. The 



Chap. XV.] 



THE WAR IN THE NORTH. 



281 



survivors of the little crew were afterwards rewarded 
as their undaunted bravery deserved. 1 

And now. taking leave, for a time, of the garrison 
of Detroit, whose fortunes we have followed so long, 
we will turn to observe the progress of events in a 
quarter of the wilderness yet more wild and remote. 



1 MS. Letter — Gladwyn to Am- 
herst, Sept. 9. Carver, 164. Re- 
lation of the Gallant Defence of the 
Schooner near Detroit, published by 
order of General Amherst, in the 
New York papers. Penn. Gaz. No. 
1816. MS. Letter — Amherst to 
Lord Egremont, Oct. 13. St. Au- 
bin's Account, MS. Peltiers Ac- 
count, MS. 

The commander-in-chief ordered a 
medal to be struck and presented to 
each of the men. Jacobs, the mate 
of the schooner, appears to have 
been as rash as he was brave ; for 
Captain Carver says, that several 
years after, when in command of the 
same vessel, he was lost, with all his 
crew, in a storm on Lake Erie, in 
consequence of having obstinately 
refused to take in ballast enough. 

As this affair savors somewhat of 
the marvellous, the following evi- 
dence is given touching the most re- 
markable features of the story. The 
document was copied from the ar- 
chives of London. 

Extract from "A Relation of the 
Gallant Defence made by the Crew 
of the Schooner on Lake Erie, when 
Attacked by a Large Body of In- 
dians ; as Published by Order of Sir 
Jeffery Amherst in the New York 
Papers." 

- The Schooner Sailed from Ni- 
agara, loaded with Provisions, some 
tune in August last: Her Crew 
consisted of the Master and Eleven 
Men, with Six Mohawk Indians, 
who were Intended for a particular 
Service. She entered the Detroit 
River, on the 3 d September : And on 
the 4 th in the Momins:. the Mohawks 

36 ' 



seemed very Desirous of being put 
on Shore, which the Master, very In- 
considerately, agreed to. The Wind 
proved contrary all that Day: and in 
the Evening, the Yessell being at 
Anchor, about Nine o'Clock, the 
Boat-swain discovered a Number of 
Canoes coining down the River, 
with about Three Hundred and Fifty 
Indians : Upon which the Bow Gun 
was Immediately Fired; but before 
the other Guns could be brought to 
Bear, the Enemy got under the Bow 
and Stern, in Spite of the Swivels 
& Small Arms, and Attempted to 
Board the Yessell : Whereupon the 
Men Abandoned their Small Arms, 
and took to their Spears, with which 
they were provided : And, with 
Amazing Resolution and Braverv, 
knocked the Savages in the Head ; 
Killed many : and saved the Yessell. 
. . It is certain Seven of the Savages 
were Killed on the Spot, and Eight 
had Died of those that were Wound- 
ed, when the Accounts came away. 
The Master and One Man were 
Killed, and four Wounded, on Board 
the Schooner, and the other Six 
brought her Safe to the Detroit." 

It is somewhat singular that no 
mention is here made of the com- 
mand to blow up the vessel. The 
most explicit authorities on this 
point are Carver, who obtained his 
account at Detroit, three years after 
the war, and a letter published in the 
Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 1816. 
This letter is dated at Detroit, five 
days after the attack. The circum- 
stance is also mentioned in several 
traditional accounts of the Canadians. 



CHAPTER 



XVI. 



MICHILLIMACKINAC. 



In the spring of the year 1763, before the war 
broke out, several English traders went up to Mich- 
illimackinac, some adopting the old route of the Ot- 
tawa, and others that of Detroit and the lakes. 
We will follow one of the latter on his adventurous 
progress. Passing the fort and settlement of De- 
troit, he soon enters Lake St, Clair, which seems 
like a broad basin filled to overflowing, while, along 
its far distant verge, a faint line of forest separates 
the water from the sky. He crosses the lake, and 
his voyageurs next urge his canoe against the cur- 
rent of the great river above. At length, Lake Hu- 
ron opens before him, stretching its liquid expanse, 
like an ocean, to the farthest horizon. His canoe 
skirts the eastern shore of Michigan, where the 
forest rises like a wall from the water's edge; and 
as he advances northward, an endless line of stiff 
and shaggy fir-trees, hung with long mosses, fringes 
the shore with an aspect of monotonous desolation. 
In the space of two or three weeks, if his Cana- 
dians labor well, and no accident occur, the trader 
approaches the end of his voyage. Passing on his 
right the extensive Island of Bois Blanc, he sees, 
nearly hi front, the beautiful Mackinaw, rising, with 
its white cliffs and green foliage, from the broad 



Chap. XVI.] 



MICHILLIMACKIXAC. 



283 



breast of the waters. He does not steer towards it, 
for at that day the Indians were its only tenants, 
but keeps along the main shore to the left, while his 
yoyageurs raise their song and chorus. Doubling a 
point, he sees before him the red flag of England 
swelling lazily in the wind, and the palisades and 
wooden bastions of Fort Michillimackinac standing 
close upon the margin of the lake. On the beach, 
canoes are drawn up, and Canadians and Indians are 
idly lounging. A little beyond the fort is a cluster 
of the white Canadian houses, roofed with bark, and 
protected by fences of strong round pickets. 

The trader enters at the gate, and sees before him 
an extensive square area, surrounded by high pali- 
sades. Numerous houses, barracks, and other build- 
ings form a smaller square within, and in the vacant 
space which they enclose, appear the red uniforms 
of British soldiers, the gray coats of Canadians, and 
the gaudy Indian blankets, mingled in picturesque 
confusion, while a multitude of squaws, with chil- 
dren of every hue, stroll restlessly about the place. 
Such was Fort Michillimackinac in 1T63. 1 Its name, 
which, in the Algonquin tongue, signifies the Great 
Turtle, was first, from a fancied resemblance, applied 
to the neighboring island, and thence to the fort. 

Though buried in a wilderness, Michillimackinac 
was still of no recent origin. As early as 1671, the 
Jesuits had established a mission near the place, and 
a military force was not long hi following ; for, under 
the French dominion, the priest and the soldier went 
hand in hand. Neither toil, nor suffering, nor all 



i This description is drawn from the stumps of the pickets and the 
traditional accounts, aided by a per- foundations of the nouses may still 
sonal examination of the spot, where he traced. 



284 



MICHILLIMACKINAC 



[Chap. XVI. 



the terrors of the wilderness, could damp the zeal 
of the undaunted missionary; and the restless am- 
bition of France was always on the alert to seize 
every point of vantage, and avail itself of every means 
to gain ascendency over the forest tribes. Besides 
Michillimackinac, there were two other posts in this 
northern region, Green Bay, and the Sault Ste. Marie. 
Both were founded at an early period, and both pre- 
sented the same characteristic features, a mission- 
house, a fort, and a cluster of Canadian dwellings. 
They had been originally garrisoned by small parties 
of militia, who, bringing their families with them, 
settled on the spot, and were founders of these little 
colonies. Michillimackinac, much the largest of the 
three, contained thirty families within the palisades 
of the fort, and about as many more without. Be- 
sides its military value, it was important as a centre 
of the fur- trade; for it was here that the traders en- 
gaged their men, and sent out their goods in canoes, 
under the charge of subordinates, to the more distant 
regions of the Mississippi and the north-west. 

During the greater part of the year, the garrison 
and the settlers were completely isolated — cut off 
from all connection with the world; and, indeed, so 
great was the distance, and so serious the perils, 
which separated the three sister posts of the northern 
lakes, that often, through the whole winter, all inter- 
course was stopped between them. 1 

It is difficult for the imagination adequately to 
conceive the extent of these fresh-water oceans, and 
vast regions of forest, which, at the date of our nar- 
rative, were the domain of nature, a mighty hunting 

1 MS. Journal of Lieutenant Gorell, commanding at Green Bay, 1761-63. 



Chap. XVI.] 



THE NEIGHBOEDsG TEIBES. 



285 



and fishing ground, for the sustenance of a few 
wandering tribes. One might journey among them 
for days, and even weeks together, without behold- 
ing a human face. The Indians near Michillimack- 
inac were the Ojibwas and Ottawas, the former of 
whom claimed the eastern section of Michigan, and 
the latter the western, their respective portions be- 
ing separated by a line drawn southward from the 
fort itself. 1 The principal village of the Ojibwas 
contained about a hundred warriors, and stood upon 
the Island of Micknlimackinac, now called Mackinaw. 
There was another smaller village near the head of 
Thunder Bay. The Ottawas, to the number of two 
hundred and fifty warriors, lived at the settlement of 
L'Arbre Croche, on the shores of Lake Michigan, some 
distance west of the fort. This place was then the 
seat of the old Jesuit mission of St. Ignace, originally 
placed, by Father Marquette, on the northern side of 
the straits. Many of the Ottawas were nominal Cath- 
olics. They were all somewhat improved from their 
original savage condition, living in log houses, and 
cultivating corn and vegetables to such an extent as 
to supply the fort with provision, besides satisfying 
their own wants. The Ojibwas, on the other hand, 
were not in the least degree removed from their prim- 
itive barbarism. 2 

These two tribes, with most of the other neighbor- 
ing Indians, were strongly hostile to the English. 
Many of their warriors had fought against them in 
the late war, for France had summoned allies from 
the farthest corners of the wilderness, to aid her in 
her desperate struggle. This feeling of hostility was 



1 Carver, Travels, 29. derived from memoranda furnished 

2 Many of these particulars are by Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq. 



286 



MICHILLIMACKINAC. 



[Chap. XYI. 



excited to a higher pitch by the influence of the 
Canadians, who disliked the English, not merely as 
national enemies, but also as rivals in the fur-trade, 
and were extremely jealous of their intrusion upon 
the lakes. The following incidents, which occurred 
in the autumn of the year 1761, will illustrate the 
state of feeling which prevailed: — 

At that time, although Michillimackinac had been 
surrendered, and the French garrison removed, no 
English troops had yet arrived to supply their place, 
and the Canadians were the only tenants of the fort. 
An adventurous trader, Alexander Henry, who, with 
one or two others, was the pioneer of the English 
fur-trade hi this region, came to Michillimackinac by 
the route of the Ottawa. On the way, he was sev- 
eral times warned to turn back, and assured of death 
if he proceeded, and, at length, was compelled for 
safety to assume the disguise of a Canadian voy?^- 
geur. When his canoes, laden with goods, reached 
the fort, he was very coldly received by its inhab- 
itants, who did all in their power to alarm and dis- 
courage him. Soon after his arrival, he received the 
very unwelcome information, that a large number of 
Ojibwas, from the neighboring villages, were coming, 
in their canoes, to call upon him. Under ordinary 
circumstances, such a visitation, though disagreeable 
enough, would excite neither anxiety nor surprise ; 
for the Indians, when in their villages, lead so mo- 
notonous an existence, that they are ready to snatch 
at the least occasion of excitement, and the prospect 
of a few trifling presents, and a few pipes of to- 
bacco, is often a sufficient inducement for a journey 
of several days. But in the present instance, there 
was serious cause of apprehension, since Canadians 



Chap. XVI.] 



ADVENTURES OF A TRADER. 



287 



and Frenchmen were alike hostile to the solitary 
trader. The story could not be better told than in 
his own graphic and truthful words. 

" At two o'clock in the afternoon, the Chippewas 
(Ojibwas) came to the house, about sixty in num- 
ber, and headed by Minavavana, their chief. They 
walked in single file, each with his tomahawk in one 
hand and scalping-knife in the other. Their bodies 
were naked from the waist upward, except in a few 
examples, where blankets were thrown loosely over 
the shoulders. Their faces were painted with char- 
coal, worked up with grease, their bodies with white 
clay, in patterns of various fancies. Some had feath- 
ers thrust through their noses, and their heads deco- 
rated with the same. It is unnecessary to dwell on 
the sensations with which I beheld the approach of 
this uncouth, if not frightful assemblage. 

" The chief entered first, and the rest followed with- 
out noise. On receiving a sign from the former, the 
latter seated themselves on the floor. 

" Minavavana appeared to be about fifty years of 
age. He was six feet in height, and had in his 
countenance an indescribable mixture of good and 
evil. Looking steadfastly at me, where I sat in 
ceremony, with an interpreter on either hand, and 
several Canadians behind me, he entered, at the same 
time, into conversation with Campion, inquiring how 
long it was since I left Montreal, and observing, that 
the English, as it would seem, were brave men, and 
not afraid of death, since they dared to come, as I 
had done, fearlessly among their enemies. 

"The Indians now gravely smoked their pipes, 
while I inwardly endured the tortures of suspense. 
At length, the pipes being finished, as well as a long 



288 



MICHILLBIACKIXAC 



[Chap. XVI. 



pause, by which they were succeeded, Minavavana, 
taking a few strings of wampum in his hand, began 
the following speech : — 

" 4 Englishman, it is to you that I speak, and I 
demand your attention. 

" 8 Englishman, you know that the French king is 
our father. He promised to be such ; and we, in re- 
turn, promised to be his children. This promise we 
have kept. 

" 4 Englishman, it is you that have made war with 
this our father. You are his enemy; and how, then, 
could you have the boldness to venture among us, 
his children'? You know that his enemies are ours. 

" 5 Englishman, we are informed that our father, 
the King of France, is old and infirm ; and that, be- 
ing fatigued with making war upon your nation, he 
is fallen asleep. During his sleep, you have taken 
advantage of him, and possessed yourselves of Canada. 
But his nap is almost at an end. I think I hear 
him already stirring, and mquiring for his children, 
the Indians; and when he does awake, what must 
become of you? He will destroy you utterly. 

" 8 Englishman, although you have conquered the 
French, you have not yet conquered us. We are 
not your slaves. These lakes, these woods and moun- 
tains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our 
inheritance ; and we will part with them to none. 
Your nation supposes that we, like the white people, 
cannot live without bread, and pork, and beef ! But 
you ought to know that He, the Great Spirit and 
Master of Life, has provided food for us in these 
spacious lakes, and on these woody mountains. 

" 4 Englishman, our father, the King of France, 
employed our young men to make war upon your 



Chap. XVI.] 



SPEECH OE MINAVAVAXA. 



289 



nation. In this warfare, many of them have been 
killed; and it is our custom to retaliate until such 
time as the spirits of the slain are satisfied. But the 
spirits of the slain are to be satisfied in either of 
two ways; the first is, by the spilling of the blood 
of the nation by which they fell ; the other, by cover- 
ing the bodies of the dead, and thus allaying the re- 
sentment of their relations. This is done by making 
presents. 

« < Englishman, your king has never sent us any 
presents, nor entered into any treaty with us ; where- 
fore he and we are still at war ; and, until he does 
these things, we must consider that we have no other 
father nor friend, among the white men, than the 
King of France; but for you, we have taken into 
consideration that you have ventured your life among 
us, in the expectation that we should not molest 
you. You do not come armed, with an intention to 
make war; you come in peace, to trade with us, and 
supply us with necessaries, of which we are in much 
want. We shall regard you, therefore, as a brother ; 
and you may sleep tranquilly, without fear of the 
Chippewas. As a token of our friendship, we present 
you this pipe to smoke.' 

"As Minavavana uttered these words, an Indian 
presented me with a pipe, which, after I had drawn 
the smoke three times, was carried to the chief, and 
after hhn to every person in the room. This cere- 
mony ended, the chief arose, and gave me his hand, 
in which he was followed by all the rest." 1 

These tokens of friendship were suitably acknowl- 
edged by the trader, who made a formal reply to 



1 Henry, Travels, 45. 

37 



T 



MICHTTXIMACKIS'AC. 



[Chap. XVI. 



Minavavana's speech. To tliis succeeded a request 
for whiskey ou the part of the Indians, with which 
Henry unwillingly complied; and, having distributed 
several small additional presents, he beheld, with 
profound satisfaction, the departure of his guests. 
Scarcely had he ceased to congratulate himself on 
having thus got rid of the Ojibwas, or, as he calls 
them, the Chippewas, when a more formidable inva- 
sion once more menaced him with destruction. Two 
hundred L'Arbre Croche Ottawas came in a body 
to the fort, and summoned Henry, together with 
Goddard and Solomons, two other traders, who had 
just arrived, to meet them in council. Here th-y 
informed their startled auditors that they must dis- 
tribute their goods among the Indians, adding a 
worthless promise to pay them in the spring, and 
threatening force in case of a refusal. Being allowed 
until the next morning to reflect on what they had 
heard, the traders resolved on resistance, and, accord- 
ingly, arming about thirty of their men with muskets, 
they barricaded themselves in the house occupied by 
Henry, and kept strict watch all night. The Otta- 
was, however, did not venture an attack. On the 
following day, the Canadians, with pretended sympa- 
thy, strongly advised compliance with the demand : 
but the three traders resolutely held out, and kept 
possession of their stronghold till night, when, to 
their surprise and joy, the news arrived that the 
body of troops known to be on their way towards 
the fort were, at that moment, encamped within a 
few miles of it. Another night of watching and anx- 
iety succeeded; but at sunrise, the Ottawas launched 
their canoes and departed, while, imme diately after, 
the boats of the English detachment were seen to 



Chap. XVI.] THE OJIBWA WAR- CHIEF. 



291 



approach the landing-place. Michilliinackiiiac re- 
ceived a strong garrison, and for a time, at least, 
the traders were safe. 

Time passed on, and the hostile feelings of the 
Indians towards the English did not diminish. It 
necessarily follows, from the extremely loose charac- 
ter of Indian government, — if indeed the name gov- 
ernment be applicable at all, — that the separate 
members of the same tribe have little political con- 
nection, and are often united merely by the social 
tie of totemship. Thus the Ottawas at L'Arbre 
Croche were quite independent of those at Detroit. 
They had a chief of their own, who by no means 
acknowledged the authority of Pontiac, though the 
high reputation of this great warrior every where 
attached respect and influence to his name. The 
same relations subsisted between the Ojibwas of 
Michillimackinac and their more southern tribesmen; 
and the latter might declare war and make peace 
without at all involvhig the former. 

The name of the Ottawa chief at L'Arbre Croche 
has not survived in history or tradition. The chief 
of the Ojibwas, however, is still remembered by the 
remnants of his people, and was the same whom 
Henry calls Minavavana, or, as the Canadians en- 
titled him, by way of distinction, Le Grand Scmteur, 
or the Great Ojibwa. He lived in the little village 
of Thunder Bay, though his power was acknowl- 
edged by the Indians of the neighboring islands. 
That his mind was of no common order is suffi- 
ciently evinced by his speech to Henry ; but he had 
not the commanding spirit of Pontiac. His influ- 
ence seems not to have extended beyond his own 
tribe. He could not, or, at least, he did not, control 



292 



MICHILLIMACKINAC. 



[Chap. XVI. 



the erratic forces of an Indian community, and turn 
them into one broad current of steady and united 
energy. Hence, in the events about to be described, 
the natural instability of the Indian character was 
abundantly displayed. 

In the spring of the year 1763, Pontiac, in com- 
passing his grand scheme of hostility, sent, among 
the rest, to the Indians of Michillimackinac, inviting 
them to aid him in the war. His messengers, bear- 
ing in their hands the war-belt of black and purple 
wampum, appeared before the assembled warriors, 
flung at their feet a hatchet painted red, and deliv- 
ered the speech with which they had been charged. 
The warlike auditory answered with deep ejaculations 
of applause, and, taking up the blood-red hatchet, 
pledged themselves to join in the contest. Before 
the end of May, news reached the Ojibwas that 
Pontiac had already struck the English at Detroit. 
This wrought them up to a high pitch of excite- 
ment and emulation, and they resolved that peace 
should last no longer. Their numbers were at this 
time more than doubled, by several bands of their 
wandering people, who had gathered at Michilli- 
mackinac, from far and near, attracted probably by 
rumors of impending war. Being, perhaps, jealous 
of the Ottawas, or willing to gain all the glory and 
plunder to themselves, they determined to attack the 
fort, without communicating the design to their 
neighbors of L'Arbre Croche. 

At this time there were about thirty-five men, 
with their officers, in garrison at Michillimackinac. 1 

i This appears from the letters of the inhabitants of the fort, both sol- 
Captain Etherington. Henry states diers and Canadians, in his enumer- 
the number at ninety. It is not un- ation 
likely that he meant to include all 



Chap. XVI.] 



"WARNINGS OF DANGER, 



293 



Warning of the tempest that impended had been 
clearly given ; enough, had it been heeded, to have 
averted the fatal disaster. Several of the Cana- 
dians least hostile to the English had thrown out 
hints of approaching danger, and one of them had 
even told Captain Etherington, the commandant, that 
the Indians had formed a design to destroy, not 
only his garrison, but all the English on the lakes. 
With a folly, of which, at this period, there were 
several parallel instances among the British officers 
in America, Etherington not only turned a deaf ear 
to what he heard, but threatened to send prisoner to 
Detroit the next person who should disturb the fort 
with such tidings. Henry, the trader, who was at 
this time in the place, had also seen occasion to dis- 
trust the Indians ; but on communicating his sus- 
picions to the commandant, the latter treated them 
with total disregard. Henry accuses himself of 
sharing this officer's infatuation. That his person 
was in danger, had been plainly intimated to him, 
under the following curious circumstances : — 

An Ojibwa chief, named Wawatam, had conceived 
for him one of those strong friendly attachments 
which often form so pleasing a feature in the Indian 
character. It was about a year since Henry had 
first met with this man. One morning, 'Wawatam 
had entered his house, and placing before him, on 
the ground, a large present , of furs and dried meat, 
delivered a speech to the following effect: Early in 
life, after the ancient usage of his people, he had 
withdrawn to fast and pray in solitude, that he 
might propitiate the Great Spirit, and learn the 
future career marked out for him. In the course of 
his dreams and visions on this occasion, it was 



294 



MI C HILL DIA C KLX A C . 



[Chap. XVI. 



revealed to him that, in after years, he should meet 
a white man. who should be to him a Mend and 
brother. Xo sooner had he seen Henry, than the 
irrepressible conviction rose up within him. that he 
was the man whom the Great Spirit had indicated, 
and that the dream was now fulfilled. Henry re- 
plied to the speech with suitable acknowledgments 
of gratitude, made a present in his turn, smoked a 
pipe with Wawatam, and. as the latter soon after 
left the fort, speedily forgot his Indian friend and 
brother altogether. Many months had elapsed since 
the occurrence of this very characteristic incident, 
when, on the second of June. Henry's door was 
pushed open without ceremony, and the dark fig- 
ure of Wawatam glided silently in. He said that 
he was just returned from his winteiing ground. 
Henry, at length recollecting him. inquired after the 
success of his hunt ; but the Indian, without reply- 
ing, sat down with a dejected air. and expressed his 
surprise and regret at finding his brother still hi the 
fort. He said that he was going on the next day 
to the Sault Ste. Marie, and that he wished Henry 
to go with him. He then asked if the English had 
heard no bad news, and said that through the whi- 
ter he himself had been much disturbed by the 
singing of evil birds. Seeing that Henry gave little 
attention to what he said, he at length went away 
with a sad and mournful face. On the next morn- 
ing, he came again, together with his squaw, and, 
offering the trader a present of dried meat, again 
pressed him to go with him. in the afternoon, to the 
Sault Ste. Marie. When Henry demanded his reason 
for such urgency, he asked if his brother did not 
know that many bad Indians, who had never shown 



Chap. XVI.] 



EVE OF THE MASSACRE. 



295 



themselves at the fort, were encamped in the woods 
around it. To-morrow, he said, they are coming to 
ask for whiskey, and would all get drunk, so that it 
would be dangerous to remain. Wawatam let fall, 
in addition, various other hints, which, but for 
Henry's imperfect knowledge of the Algonquin lan- 
guage, could hardly have failed to draw his atten- 
tion. As it was, however, his friend's words were 
spoken in vain ; and at length, after long and per- 
severing efforts, he and his squaw took their de- 
parture, but not, as Henry declares, before each had 
let fall some tears. Among the Indian women, the 
practice of weeping and wailing is universal upon 
all occasions of sorrowful emotion; and the kind- 
hearted squaw, as she took down her husband's 
lodge, and loaded his canoe for departure, did not 
cease to sob and moan aloud. 

On this same afternoon, Henry remembers that 
the fort was full of Indians, moving about among 
the soldiers with a great appearance of friendship. 
Many of them came to his house, to purchase 
knives and small hatchets, often asking to see silver 
bracelets, and other ornaments, with the intention, 
as afterwards appeared, of learning their places of 
deposit, in order the more easily to lay hand on 
them at the moment of pillage. As the afternoon 
drew to a close, the visitors quietly went away; and 
many of the unhappy garrison saw for the last 
time the sun go down behind the waters of Lake 
Michigan. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE MASSACRE. 



The following morning was warm and sultry. It 
was the fourth of June, the birthday of King 
George. The discipline of the garrison was relaxed, 
and some license allowed to the soldiers. Encamped 
in the woods, not far off, were a large number of 
Ojibwas, lately arrived; while several bands of the 
Sac Indians from the Biver Wisconsin had also erect- 
ed their lodges in the vicinity. Early in the morn- 
ing, many Ojibwas came to the fort, inviting officers 
and soldiers to come out and see a grand game of 
ball, which was to be played between their nation 
and the Sacs. In consequence, the place was soon 
deserted by half its tenants. An outline of Michilli- 
mackinac, as far as tradition has preserved its gen- 
eral features, has already been given; and it is easy 
to conceive, with sufficient accuracy, the appearance 
it must have presented on this eventful morning. 
The houses and barracks were so ranged as to form 
a square, enclosing an extensive area, upon which 
their doors all opened, while behind rose the tall 
palisades, forming a large external square. The pic- 
turesque Canadian houses, with their rude porticoes, 
and projecting roofs of bark, sufficiently indicated 
the occupations of their inhabitants ; for birch ca- 
noes were lying near many of them, and fishing 



Chap. XVII.] 



INDIAN BALL PLAY. 



297 



nets were stretched to dry in the sun. Women and 
children were moving about the doors ; knots of 
Canadian voyageurs reclined on the ground, smoking 
and conversing; soldiers were lounging listlessly at 
the doors and windows of the barracks, or strolling 
in a careless undress about the area. 

Without the fort, the scene was of a very differ- 
ent character. The gates were wide open, and the 
soldiers were collected in groups under the shadow 
of the palisades, watching the Indian ball play. 
Most of them were without arms, and mingled 
among them were a great number of Canadians, 
while a multitude of Indian squaws, wrapped in 
blankets, were conspicuous in the crowd. 

Captain Etherington and Lieutenant Leslie stood 
near the gate, the former indulging his inveterate 
English propensity; for, as Henry informs us, he 
had promised the Ojibwas that he would bet on 
their side against the Sacs. Indian chiefs and war- 
riors were also among the spectators, intent, appar- 
ently, on watching the game, but with thoughts, in 
fact, far otherwise employed. 

The plain in front was covered by the ball play- 
ers. The game in which they were engaged, called 
haggattaway by the Ojibwas, is still, as it always has 
been, a favorite with many Indian tribes. At either 
extremity of the ground, a tall post was planted, 
marking the stations of the rival parties. The object 
of each was to defend its own post, and drive the 
ball to that of its adversary. Hundreds of lithe 
and agile figures were leaping and bounding upon 
the plain. Each was nearly naked, his loose black 
hair flying in the wind, and each bore in his hand 
a bat of a form peculiar to this game. At one 
38 



298 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



moment the whole were crowded together, a dense 
throng of combatant?, all struggling for the ball; 
at the next, they were scattered again, and mrming 
over the ground like hounds in full cry. Each, in 
his excitement, yelled and shouted at the height of 
his voice. Rushing and stri kin g, tripping then ad- 
versaries, or hurling them to the ground, they pur- 
sued the animating contest amid the laughter and 
applause of the spectators. Suddenly, from the midst 
of the multitude, the ball soared into the air. and. 
descending in a wide curve, fell near the pickets of 
the fort. This was no chance stroke. It was part of 
a preconcerted stratagem to insure the surprise and 
destruction of the garrison. As if in pursuit of the 
ball, the players tinned and came rushing, a mad- 
dened and tumultuous throng, towards the sate. In 
a moment they had reached it. The amazed English 
had no time to think or act. The shrill cries of the 
ball players were changed to the ferocious war-whoop. 
The warriors snatched from the squaws the hatchets, 
which the latter, with this design, had concealed be- 
neath their blankets. Some of the Indians assailed 
the spectators without, while others rushed into the 
fort, and all was carnage and confusion. At the 
outset, several strong hands had fastened then gripe 
upon Etherhigton and Leslie, and led them away 
from the scene of massacre towards the woods. 1 
"Within the area of the fort, the men were slaugh- 
tered without mercy. But here the task of descrip- 
tion may well be resigned to the simple and manly 
pen of the trader Henry. 

;i I did not go myself to see the match which 



1 MS. Letter — Etlierington to Gladwvn. June 32. See Appendix C. 



Chap. XVII] ESCAPE OE ALEXANDER HEXEY. 



299 



was now to be played without the fort, because, 
there being a canoe prepared to depart on the 
following day for Montreal, I employed myself in 
writing letters to my friends, and even when a fellow- 
trader, Mr. Tracy, happened to call upon me, saying 
that another canoe had just arrived from Detroit, and 
proposing that I should go with him to the beach, 
to hiqiiire the news, it so happened that I still re- 
mained to finish my letters; promising to follow Mr. 
Tracy in the course of a few minutes. Mr. Tracy 
had not gone more than twenty paces from my door, 
when I heard an Indian war-cry, and a noise of gen- 
eral confusion. 

" Going instantly to my window, I saw a crowd 
of Indians, within the fort, furiously cutting down 
and scalping every Englishman they found: in par- 
ticular, I witnessed the fate of Lieutenant Jamette. 

"I had, in the room in which I was, a fowling- 
piece, loaded with swan shot. This I immediately 
seized, and held it for a few minutes, waiting to hear 
the drum beat to arms. In this dreadful interval, I 
saw several of my countrymen fall, and more than one 
struggling between the knees of an Indian, who, hold- 
ing him in this manner, scalped him while yet living. 

"At length, disappointed in the hope of seeing re- 
sistance made to the enemy, and sensible, of course, 
that no effort of my own unassisted arm could avail 
against four hundred Indians, I thought only of seek- 
ing shelter amid the slaughter which was raging. I 
observed many of the Canadian inhabitants of the 
fort calmly looking on, neither opposing the Indians 
nor suffering injury * and from this circumstance, I 
conceived a hope of finding security in their houses. 



300 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



" Between the yard door of my own house and that 
of M. Langlade, my next neighbor, there was only a 
low fence, over which I easily climbed. At my en- 
trance, I found the whole family at the windows, 
gazing at the scene of blood before them. I ad- 
dressed myself immediately to M. Langlade, begging 
that he would put me into some place of safety, un- 
til the heat of the affair should be over; an act of 
charity by which he might, perhaps, preserve me from 
the general massacre; but while I uttered my pe- 
tition, M. Langlade, who had looked for a moment at 
me, turned again to the window, shrugging his shoul- 
ders, and intimating that he could do nothing for 
me — £ Que voudriez-vous que j 'en ferais?' 

" This was a moment for despair ; but the next a 
Pani 1 woman, a slave of M. Langlade's, beckoned me 
to follow her. She brought me to a door, which she 
opened, desiring me to enter, and telling me that it 
led to the garret, where I must go and conceal my- 
self. I joyfully obeyed her directions ; and she, hav- 
ing followed me up to the garret door, locked it after 
me, and, with great presence of mind, took away 
the key. 

" This shelter obtained, if shelter I could hope to 
find it, I was naturally anxious to know what might 
still be passing without. Through an aperture, which 
afforded me a view of the area of the fort, I beheld, 
in shapes the foulest and most terrible, the ferocious 

i This name is commonly written Sacs and Foxes, who often brought 
Pawnee. The tribe who bore it lived, their prisoners to the French settle- 
as at the present day, upon the plains ments for sale. It thus happened 
west of the Mississippi. They were that Pawnee slaves were to be found 
at war with many surrounding na- in the principal families of Detroit 
tions, and, among the rest, with the and Michillimackinac. 



Chap. XVII] ESCAPE GE ALEXANDER HENRY. 



301 



triumphs of barbarian conquerors. The dead were 
scalped and mangled; the dying were writhing and 
shrieking under the unsatiated knife and tomahawk; 
and from the bodies of some, ripped open, their 
butchers were drinking the blood, scooped up in the 
hollow of joined hands, and quaffed amid shouts of 
rage and victory. I was shaken not only with hor- 
ror, but with fear. The sufferings which I witnessed 
I seemed on the point of experiencing. No long 
time elapsed before, every one being destroyed who 
could be found, there was a general cry of 6 All is 
finished.' At the same instant, I heard some of the 
Indians enter the house where I was. 

" The garret was separated from the room below 
only by a layer of single boards, at once the flooring 
of the one and the ceiling of the other. I could, 
therefore, hear every thing that passed; and the In- 
dians no sooner came in than they inquired whether 
or not any Englishmen were in the house. M. Lang- 
lade replied, that 4 he could not say, he did not 
know of any,' answers in which he did not exceed 
the truth; for the Pani woman had not only hidden 
me by stealth, but kept my secret and her own. 
M. Langlade was, therefore, as I presume, as far from 
a wish to destroy me as he was careless about saving 
me, when he added to these answers, that ' they 
might examine for themselves, and would soon be sat- 
isfied as to the object of their question.' Saying this, 
he brought them to the garret door. 

" The state of my mind will be imagined. Arrived 
at the door, some delay was occasioned by the ab- 
sence of the key; and a few moments were thus 
allowed me, in which to look around for a hiding- 
place. In one corner of the garret was a heap 



302 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII 



of those vessels of birch bark used in maple sugar 
making. 

" The door was unlocked and opening, and the In- 
dians ascending the stairs, before I had completely crept 
into a small opening which presented itself at one end 
of the heap. An instant after, four Indians entered the 
room, all armed with tomahawks, and all besmeared 
with blood, upon every part of their bodies. 

" The die appeared to be cast, I could scarcely 
breathe; but I thought the throbbing of my heart 
occasioned a noise loud enough to betray me. The 
Indians walked in every direction about the garret; 
and one of them approached me so closely, that, at a 
particular moment, had he put forth his hand, he must 
have touched me. Still I remained undiscovered; a 
circumstance to which the dark color of my clothes, 
and the want of light, in a room which had no win- 
dow in the corner in which I was, must have contrib- 
uted. In a word, after taking several turns in the 
room, during which they told M. Langlade how many 
they had killed, and how many scalps they had taken, 
they returned down stairs, and I, with sensations not 
to be expressed, heard the door, which was the bar- 
rier between me and my fate, locked for the second 
time. 

" There was a feather bed on the floor ; and on 
this, exhausted as I was by the agitation of my mind. 
I threw myself down and fell asleep. In this state ' 
I remained till the dusk of the evening, when I was 
awakened by a second opening of the door. The 
person that now entered was M. Langlade's wife, who 
was much surprised at finding me, but advised me 
not to be uneasy, observing that the Indians had 
killed most of the English, but that she hoped I 



Chap. XVII] ESCAPE OF ALEXANDER HENRY. 



303 



might myself escape. A shower of rain having begun 
to fall, she had come to stop a hole in the roof. 
On her going away, I begged her to send me a little 
water to drink, which she did. 

"As night was now advancing, I continued to lie 
on the bed, ruminating on my condition, but unable 
to discover a resource from which I could hope for 
life. A night to Detroit had no probable chance of 
success. The distance from Michillimackinac was 
four hundred miles ; I was without provisions, and 
the whole length of the road lay through Indian 
countries, countries of an enemy in arms, where the 
first man whom I should meet would kill me. To 
stay where I was, threatened nearly the same issue. 
As before, fatigue of mind, and not tranquillity, sus- 
pended my cares, and procured me farther sleep. 

" The respite which sleep afforded me during the 
night was put an end to by the return of morning. 
I was again on the rack of apprehension. At sun- 
rise, I heard the family stirring ; and, presently after, 
Indian voices, informing M. Langlade that they had 
not found my hapless self among the dead, and they 
supposed me to be somewhere concealed. M. Lang- 
lade appeared, from what followed, to be, by this 
time, acquainted with the place of my retreat; of 
which, no doubt, he had been informed by his wife. 
The poor woman, as soon as the Indians mentioned 
' me, declared to her husband,, in the French tongue, 
that he should no longer keep me in his house, but 
deliver me up to my pursuers; giving as a reason 
for this measure, that, should the Indians discover 
j his instrumentality in my concealment, they might 
revenge it on her children, and that it was better 
i that I should die than they. M. Langlade resisted, 



304 



THE MASSACEE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



at first, this sentence of his wife, but soon suffered 
her to prevail, informing the Indians that he had 
been told I was in his house ; that I had come there 
without his knowledge, and that he would put me 
into their hands. This was no sooner expressed than 
he began to ascend the stairs, the Indians following 
upon his heels. 

" I now resigned myself to the fate with which I 
was menaced; and regarding every effort at conceal- 
ment as vain, I arose from the bed, and presented 
myself full in view to the Indians, who were entering 
the room. They were all in a state of intoxication, 
and entirely naked, except about the middle. One 
of them, named Wenniway, whom I had previously 
known, and who was upwards of six feet in height, 
had his entire face and body covered with charcoal 
and grease, only that a white spot, of two- inches in 
diameter, encircled either eye. This man, walking up 
to me, seized me, with one hand, by the collar of 
the coat, while in the other he held a large carving- 
knife, as if to plunge it into my breast; his eyes, 
meanwhile, were fixed steadfastly on mine. At length, 
after some seconds of the most anxious suspense, he 
dropped his arm, saying, 6 1 won't kill you ! ' To this 
he added, that he had been frequently engaged in wars 
against the English, and had brought away many 
scalps ; that, on a certain occasion, he had lost a 
brother, whose name was Musinigon, and that I should 
be called after him. 

"A reprieve, upon any terms, placed me among 
the living, and gave me back the sustaining voice 
of hope ; but Wenniway ordered me down stairs, 
and there informing me that I was to be taken to 
his cabin, where, and indeed every where else, the 



Chap. XVII] ESCAPE OF ALEXANDER HENRY. 



305 



Indians were all mad with liquor, death again was 
threatened, and not as possible only, but as certain. 
I mentioned my fears on this subject to M. Lang- 
lade, begging him to represent the danger to my 
master. M. Langlade, in this instance, did not 
withhold his compassion, and Wenniway immediately 
consented that I should remain where I was, until 
he found another opportunity to take me away." 

Scarcely, however, had he been gone an hour, 
when an Indian came to the house, and directed 
Henry to follow him to the Ojibwa camp. Henry 
knew this man, who was largely in his debt, and 
some time before, on the trader's asking him for pay- 
ment, the Indian had declared, in a significant tone, 
that he would pay him soon. There seemed at pres- 
ent good ground to suspect his intention; but, having 
no choice, Henry was obliged to follow him. The 
Indian led the way out of the gate; but, instead of 
going towards the camp, he moved with a quick 
step in the direction of the bushes and sand-hills 
behind the fort. At this, Henry's suspicions were 
confirmed. He refused to proceed farther, and 
plainly told his conductor that he believed he meant 
to kill him. The Indian coolly replied, that he was 
quite right in thinking so, and at the same time, 
seizing the prisoner by the arm, raised his knife to 
strike him in the breast. Henry parried the blow, 
flung the Indian from him, and ran for his life. 
He gained the gate of the fort, his enemy close at 
his heels, and, seeing Wenniway standing in the 
centre of the area, called upon him for protection. 
The chief ordered the Indian to desist; but the lat- 
ter, who was foaming at the mouth with rage, still 
continued to pursue Henry, vainly striking at him 
39 z* 



306 



THE MASSACKE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



with his knife. Seeing the door of Langlade's house 
wide open, the trader darted in, and at length found 
himself in safety. He retired once more to his gar- 
ret, and lay down, feeling, as he declares, a sort of 
conviction that no Indian had power to harm him. 

This confidence was somewhat shaken when, early 
in the night, he was startled from sleep by the 
opening of the door. A light gleamed in upon him, 
and he was summoned to descend. He did so, when, 
to his surprise and joy, he found, in the room be- 
low, Captain Etherington, Lieutenant Leslie, and Mr. 
Bostwick, a trader, together with Father Jonois, the 
Jesuit priest from L'Arbre Croche. The Indians 
were bent on enjoying that night a grand debauch 
upon the liquor they had seized; and the chiefs, 
well knowing the extreme danger to which the pris- 
oners would be exposed during these revels, had 
conveyed them all into the fort, and placed them in 
charge of the Canadians. 

Including officers, soldiers, and traders, they 
amounted to about twenty men, this handful being 
all that had escaped the massacre. 

When Henry entered the room, he found his 
three companions in misfortune engaged in earnest 
debate. These men had supped full of horrors; yet 
they were almost on the point of risking a renewal 
of the bloodshed from which they had just escaped. 
The temptation was a strong one. The fort was 
this evening actually in the hands of the white men. 
The Indians, with their ordinary recklessness and 
improvidence, had neglected even to place a guard 
within the palisades. They were now, one and all, 
in their camp, mad with liquor, and the fort was 
occupied by twenty Englishmen, and about three 



Chap. XVII.] 



ADVENTURES OE HENRY. 



307 



hundred Canadians, principally voyageurs. To close 
the gates, and set the Indians at defiance, seemed no 
very difficult matter. It might have been attempted, 
but for the dissuasions of the Jesuit, who had acted 
throughout the part of a true friend of humanity, 
and who now strongly represented the probability 
that the Canadians would prove treacherous, and the 
certainty that a failure would involve destruction to 
every Englishman in the place. The idea was there- 
fore abandoned, and Captain Etherington, with his 
companions, that night shared Henry's garret, where 
they passed the time in condoling with each other 
on their common misfortune. 

A party of Indians came to the house in the 
morning, and ordered Henry to follow them out. 
The weather had changed, and a cold storm had set 
in. In the dreary and forlorn area of the fort were 
a few of the Indian conquerors, though the main 
body were still in their camp, not yet recovered from 
the effects of their last night's carouse. Henry's 
conductors led him to a house, where, in a room 
almost dark, he saw two traders and a soldier im- 
prisoned. They were released, and directed to follow 
the party. The whole then proceeded together to 
the lake shore, where they were to embark for the 
Isles du Castor. A chilling wind blew strongly 
from the north-east, and the lake was covered with 
mists, and tossing angrily., Henry stood shivering 
on the beach, with no other upper garment than a 
shirt, drenched with the cold rain. He asked Lang- 
lade, who was near him, for a blanket, which the 
latter, with cold-blooded inhumanity, refused to fur- 
nish unless security was given for payment. Another 
Canadian proved more merciful, and Henry received 



308 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII 



a covering from the weather. With, his three com- 
panions, guarded hy seven Indians, he embarked in 
the canoe, the soldier being tied by his neck to one 
of the cross-bars of the vessel. The thick mists 
and the tempestuous weather compelled them to 
keep along the shore, close beneath the wet drip- 
ping forests. In this manner they had proceeded 
about eighteen miles, and were approaching L'Arbre 
Croche, when an Ottawa Indian came out of the 
woods, and called to them from the beach, inquiring 
the news, and asking who were their prisoners. 
Some conversation followed, in the course of which 
the canoe approached the shore, where the water 
was quite shallow. All at once, a loud yell was 
heard, and a hundred Ottawas, rising from among 
the trees and bushes, rushed into the water, and 
seized upon the canoe and prisoners. The aston- 
ished Ojibwas remonstrated in vain. The four Eng- 
lishmen were taken from them, and led in safety to 
the shore. Good will to the prisoners, however, had 
by no means prompted the Ottawas to this very un- 
expected proceeding. They were jealous and angry 
that the Ojibwas should have taken the fort without 
giving them an opportunity to share in the plunder; 
and they now chose this summary mode of asserting 
their rights. 

The chiefs, however, shook Henry and his com- 
panions by the hand, professing great good will, as- 
suring them, at the same time, that the Ojibwas 
were carrying them to the Isles du Castor merely 
to kill and eat them. The four prisoners, the sport 
of so many changing fortunes, soon found themselves 
embarked in an Ottawa canoe, and on their way 
back to Michillimackinac. They were not alone. A 



Chap. XVII] QUARRELS OE THE CONQUERORS. 



309 



flotilla of canoes accompanied them, bearing a great 
number of Ottawa warriors; and before the day was 
over, the whole had arrived at the fort. At this 
time, the principal Ojibwa encampment was near the 
woods, in full sight of the landing-place. Its occu- 
pants, astonished at this singular movement on the 
part of their rivals, stood looking on in silent 
amazement, while the Ottawa warriors, well armed, 
filed into the fort, and took possession of it. 

This conduct is not difficult to explain, when we 
take into consideration the peculiarities of the In- 
dian character. Pride and jealousy are always strong 
and active elements in it. The Ottawas deemed 
themselves grossly insulted because the Ojibwas had 
undertaken an enterprise of such importance with- 
out consulting them, or asking their assistance. It 
may be added, that the Indians of L'Arbre Croche 
were somewhat less hostile to the English than the 
neighboring tribes ; for the great influence of the 
priest Jonois seems always to have been exerted on 
the side of peace and friendship. 

The English prisoners looked upon the new comers 
as champions and protectors, and conceived hopes 
from their interference not destined to be fully real- 
ized. On the morning after their arrival, the Ojibwa 
chiefs invited the principal men of the Ottaw T as to 
hold a council with them in a building within the 
fort. They placed upon the floor a valuable present 
of goods, which were part of the plunder they had 
taken ; and their great war-chief, Minavavana, who 
had conducted the attack, rose and addressed the 
Ottawas. 

Their conduct, he said, had greatly surprised him. 
They had betrayed the common cause, and opposed 



310 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



the will of the Great Spirit, who had decreed that 
every Englishman must die. Excepting them, all the 
Indians had raised the hatchet. Pontiac had taken 
Detroit, and every other fort had also been destroyed. 
The English were meeting with destruction through- 
out the whole world, and the King of France was 
awakened from his sleep. He exhorted them, in 
conclusion, no longer to espouse the cause of the 
English, but, like their brethren, to lift the hatchet 
against them. 

"When Minavavana had concluded his speech, the 
council adjourned until the next day; a custom com- 
mon among Indians, in order that the auditors may 
have time to ponder with due deliberation upon 
what they have heard. At the next meeting, the 
Ottawas expressed a readiness to concur with the 
views of the Ojibwas. Thus the difference between 
the two tribes was at length amicably adjusted. 
The Ottawas returned to the Ojibwas some of the 
prisoners whom they had taken from them, still, 
however, retaining the officers and several of the 
soldiers. These they soon after carried to L'Arbre 
Croche, where they were treated with kindness, prob- 
ably owing to the influence of Father Jonois. 1 The 
priest went down to Detroit with a letter from Cap- 
tain Etherington, acquainting Major Gladwyn with 
the loss of Michillimackinac, and entreating that a 
force might be sent immediately to his aid. The 
letter, as we have seen, was safely delivered; but 
Gladwyn was, of course, unable to render the re- 
quired assistance. 

Though the Ottawas and Ojibwas had come to 

1 MS. Letter — Etherington to Gladwyn, June 28. 



Chap. XVII.] TREATMENT OF THE PRISONERS. 



311 



terms, they still looked on each other with distrust, 
and it is said that the former never forgot the slight 
that had been put upon them. The Ojibwas took 
the prisoners who had been returned to them from 
the fort, and carried them to one of their small vil- 
lages, which stood near the shore, at no great dis- 
tance to the south-east. Among the other lodges 
was a large one, of the kind often seen in Indian 
villages, erected for use on public occasions, such 
as dances, feasts, or councils. It was now to serve 
as a prison. The soldiers were bound together, two 
and two, and farther secured by long ropes tied 
round their necks, and fastened to the pole which 
supported the lodge in the centre. Henry and the 
other traders escaped this rigorous treatment. The 
spacious lodge was soon filled with Indians, who 
came to look at their captives, and gratify them- 
selves by deriding and jeering at them. At the 
head of the lodge sat the great war-chief Minava- 
vana, side by side with Henry's master, Wenniway. 
Things had remained for some time in this position, 
when Henry observed an Indian stooping to enter 
at the low aperture which served for a door, and, to 
his great joy, recognized his friend and brother, Wa- 
watam, whom he had last seen on the day before 
the massacre. Wawatam said nothing; but, as he 
passed the trader, he shook him by the hand, in 
token of encouragement, and, proceeding to the head 
of the lodge, sat down with Wenniway and the 
war-chief. After he had smoked with them for a 
while in silence, he rose and went out again. Very 
soon he came back, followed by his squaw, who 
brought in her hands a valuable present, which she 



312 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. JTTI. 



laid at the feet of the two chiefs. Wawatam t" ::i 
addressed them in the following speech : — 

"Friends and relations, what is it that I shall 
say? Yon know what I feel. Yon ail have friends, 
and brothers, and children, whom as yourselves you 
love; and you, — what would you experience, did 
you, like me, behold your dearest friend — your 
brother — in the condition of a slave; a slave, ex- 
posed every moment to insult, and to menaces of 
death? This case, as you all know, is mine. See 
there, [pointing to Henry,] my friend and brother 
among slaves, — himself a slave ! 

" You all well know that, long bzio™ the war 
began, I adopted him as my brother. F»tnc 
moment, he became one of my family, so that l-o 
change of circumstances could break the cord which 
fastened us together. 

" He is my brother ; and because I am your rela- 
tion, he is therefore your relation too; and how, 
being your relation, can he be your slave? 

" On the day on which the war began, you w 
fearful lest, on this very account, I should rev 
your secret. You requested, therefore, that I wou 
leave the fort, and even cross the lake. I did so ; 
but I did it with reluctance. I did it with reluc- 
tance, notwithstanding that you, Minavavana, who 
had the command in this enterprise, gave me your 
promise that you would protect my friend, deliv- 
ering him from all danger, and giving him safely 
to me. 

" The performance of this promise I now claim. 
I come not with empty hands to ask it. Yea, M: 
avavana, best know whether or not, as it resrv 3 



Chap. XVH] 



CANNIBALISM. 



313 



yourself, you have kept your word; but I bring 
these goods to buy off every claim which any man 
long you all may have on my brother as his 
prisoner." 1 

To this speech the war-chief returned a favorable 
niswer. Wawatam's request was acceded to, the 
esent was accepted, and the prisoner released. Henry 
on found himself in the lodge of his friend, where 
furs were spread for him to lie upon, food and drink 
Dught for his refreshment, and every thing done to 
promote his comfort that Indian hospitality could 
ggest. As he lay in the lodge, on the day after 
his release, he heard a loud noise from within the 
prison-house, which stood close at hand, and, looking 
through a crevice in the bark, he saw the dead bodies 
of seven soldiers dragged out. It appeared that a 
n ted chief had just arrived from his wintering ground. 
Having come too late to take part in the grand 
achievement of his countrymen, he was anxious to 
nifest to all present his entire approval of what 
d been done, and with this design he had entered 
e lodge and despatched seven of the prisoners with 
knife. 

The Indians are not habitual cannibals. After a 
victory, however, it often happens that the bodies of 
th >ir enemies are consumed at a formal war-feast — 
a superstitious rite, adapted, as they think, to increase 

iir courage and hardihood. Such a feast took place 
on the present occasion, and most of the chiefs par- 
took of it, though some of them, at least, did so with 
repugnance. 

i Henry, Travels, 102. The strict Henry was living at Montreal as 
authenticity of this very interesting late as the year 1809. 
book has never been questioned. 

40 A A 



314 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII 



About a week had now elapsed since the massacre, 
and a revulsion of feeling began to take place among 
the Indians. Up to this time all had been triumph 
and exultation ; but they now began to fear the con- 
sequences of their conduct. Indefinite and absurd 
rumors of an approaching attack from the English 
were afloat in the camp, and, in their growing un- 
easiness, they thought it expedient to shift their po- 
sition to some point more capable of defence. Three 
hundred and fifty warriors, with their families and 
household effects, embarked hi canoes for the Island 
of Michillimackinac, seven or eight miles distant. 
Wawatam, with his friend Henry, was of the num- 
ber. Strong gusts of wind came from the north, 
and when the fleet of canoes were half way to the 
island, it blew a gale, the waves pitching and tossing 
with such violence, that the frail and heavy-laden 
vessels were much endangered. Many voices were 
raised in prayer to the Great Spirit, and a dog was 
thrown into the lake, as a sacrifice to appease the 
angry manitou of the waters. The canoes weathered 
the storm, and soon drew near the island. Two 
squaws, in the same canoe with Henry, raised their 
voices in mournful wailing and lamentation. Late 
events had made him sensible to every impression of 
horror, and these dismal cries seemed ominous of some 
new disaster, until he learned that they were called 
forth by the recollection of dead relatives, whose 
graves were visible upon a neighboring point of the 
shore. 

The Island of Michillimackinac, or Mackinaw, ow- 
ing ,to its situation, its beauty, and the fish which 
the surrounding waters supplied, had long been a 
favorite resort of Indians. It is about three miles 



Chap.XVH.] ISLAND OF MACKINAW. 



315 



wide. So clear are the waters of Lake Huron, which 
wash its shores, that one may count the pebbles at 
an incredible depth. The island is fenced round by 
white limestone cliffs, beautifully contrasting with the 
green foliage that half covers them, and in the centre 
the land rises in woody heights. The rock which 
forms its foundation assumes fantastic shapes — natu- 
ral bridges, caverns, or sharp pinnacles, which, at this 
day, are pointed out as the curiosities of the region. 
In many of the caves have been found quantities of 
human bones, as if, at some period, the island had 
served as a grand depository for the dead ; yet of 
these remains the present race of Indians can give 
no account. Legends and superstitions attached a 
mysterious celebrity to the place, and here it was 
said the fairies of Indian tradition might often be 
seen dancing upon the white rocks, or basking in 
the moonlight. 1 

The Indians landed at the margin of a little bay. 
Unlading their canoes, and lifting them high and dry 
upon the beach, they began to erect their lodges, and 



1 Tradition, preserved by Henry 
Conner, Esq. See also Schoolcraft, 
Algic Researches, II. 159. 

"Their tradition concerning the 
name of this little island is curious. 
They say that Michapous, the chief 
of spirits, sojourned long in that vi- 
cinity. They believed that a moun- 
tain on the border of the lake was the 
place of his abode, and they called 
it by his name. It was here, say 
they, that he first instructed man to 
fabricate nets for taking fish, and 
where he has collected the greatest 
quantity of these finny inhabitants of 
the waters. On the island he left 
spirits, named Imakinakos ; and from 
these aerial possessors it has re- 
ceived the appellation of Michili- 
makinac. 



" When the savages, in those quar- 
ters, make a feast of fish, they invoke 
the spirits of the island, thank them 
for their bounty, and entreat them to 
continue their protection to their fam- 
ilies. They demand of them to pre- 
serve their nets and canoes from 
the swelling and destructive billows, 
when the lakes are agitated by storms. 
All who assist in the ceremony 
lengthen their voices together, which 
is an act of gratitude. In the obser- 
vance of this duty of their religion, 
they were formerly very punctual and 
scrupulous ; but the French rallied 
them so much upon the subject, that 
they became ashamed to practise it 
openly." — Heriot, Travels in Cana- 
da, 185. 



316 



THE MASSACKE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



before night had completed the work. Messengers 
arrived on the next day from Pontiac, informing them 
that he was besieging Detroit, and urging them to 
come to his aid. But their warlike ardor had well 
nigh died out. A senseless alarm prevailed among 
them, and they now thought more of securing their 
own safety than of injuring the enemy. A vigilant 
watch was kept up all day, and the unusual precau- 
tion taken of placing guards at night. Their fears, 
however, did not prevent them from seizing two Eng- 
lish trading canoes, which had come from Montreal by 
way of the Ottawa. Among the booty found in them 
was a quantity of whiskey, and a general debauch 
was the immediate result. As night closed in, the 
dolorous chanting of drunken songs was heard from 
within the lodges, the prelude of a scene of riot ; and 
Wawatam, knowing that his friend Henry's life would 
be in danger, privately led him out of the camp to 
a cavern in the hills, towards the interior of the 
island. Here the trader spent the night, in a soli- 
tude made doubly dreary by a sense of his forlorn 
and perilous situation. On waking in the morning, 
he found that he had been lying on human bones, 
which covered the floor of the cave. The place had 
anciently served as a charnel-house. Here he spent 
another solitary night, before his friend came to ap- 
prise him that he might return with safety to the 
camp. 

Famine soon began to be felt among the Indians, 
who were sometimes without food for days together. 
No complaints were heard ; but with faces blackened, 
in sign of sorrow, they patiently endured the priva- 
tion with that resignation, under inevitable suffering, 
which distinguishes the whole Indian race. They 



Chap. XVII] 



GREEN BAY. 



317 



were at length compelled to cross over to the north 
shore of Lake Huron, where fish were more abundant, 
and here they remained until the end of summer, 
when they gradually dispersed, each family repair- 
ing to its winter hunting-grounds. Henry, paint- 
ed and attired like an Indian, followed his friend 
Wawatam, and spent a lonely winter among the 
frozen forests, hunting the bear and moose for sub- 
sistence. 1 

The posts of Green Bay and the Sault Ste. Marie 
did not share the fate of Michillimackinac. During 
the preceding winter, Ste. Marie had been partially 
destroyed by an accidental fire, and was therefore 
abandoned, the garrison withdrawing to Michillimack- 
inac, where many of them perished in the massacre. 
The fort at Green Bay first received an English gar- 
rison in the year 1761, at the same time with the 
other posts of this region. The force consisted of 
seventeen men, commanded by Lieutenant Gorell. 



i The following description of Min- 
avavana, or the Grand Sauteur, who 
was the leader of the Ojibwas at 
the massacre of Michillimackinac, is 
drawn from Carver's Travels : — 

" The first I accosted were Chipe- 
ways, inhabiting near the Ottowaw 
lakes ; who received me with great 
cordiality, and shook me by the hand, 
in token of friendship. At some lit- 
tle distance behind these stood a 
chief remarkably tall and well made, 
but of so stern an aspect, that the 
most undaunted person could not be- 
hold him without feeling some degree 
of terror. He seemed to have passed 
the meridian of life, and by the mode 
in which he was painted and tatowed, 
I discovered that he was of high 
rank. However, I approached him 
in a courteous manner, and expected 
to have met with the same reception 



I had done from the others ; but, to 
my great surprise, he withheld his 
hand, and looking fiercely at me, said, 
in the Chipeway tongue, ' Cawin 
nishishin saganoshf that is, ' The 
English are no good.' As he had 
his tomahawk in his hand, I expected 
that this laconick sentence would 
have been followed by a blow; to 
prevent which I drew a pistol from 
my belt, and, holding it in a careless 
position, passed close by him, to let 
him see I was not afraid of him. 
.... Since I came to England, I 
have been informed, that the Grand 
Sautor, having rendered himself more 
and more disgustful to the English 
by his inveterate enmity towards 
them, was at length stabbed in his 
tent, as he encamped near Michilli- 
mackinac, by a trader." — Carver, 96. 

AA* 



318 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



Though so few in number, their duties were of a 
very important character. In the neighborhood of 
Green Bay were numerous and powerful Indian 
tribes. The Menomonies lived at the mouth of Fox 
River, close to the fort. The Winnebagoes had several 
villages on the lake which bears their name, and the 
Sacs and Foxes were established on the River Wis- 
consin, in a large village composed of houses neatly 
built of logs and bark, and surrounded by fields of 
corn and vegetables. 1 West of the Mississippi was 
the powerful nation of the Dahcotah, whose strength 
was loosely estimated at thirty thousand fighting men, 
and who, in the excess of their haughtiness, styled 
the surrounding tribes their dogs and slaves. 2 The 
commandant of Green Bay was the representative of 
the British government, in communication with all 
these tribes. It devolved upon him to secure their 
friendship, and keep them at peace ; and he was also 
intrusted, in a great measure, with the power of reg- 
ulating the fur-trade among them. In the course of 
each season, parties of Indians, from every quarter, 
would come to the fort, each expecting to be received 
with speeches and presents. 

Gorell seems to have acquitted himself with great 
judgment and prudence. On first arriving at the 
fort, he had found its defences decayed and ruinous, 
the Canadian inhabitants unfriendly, and many of 
the Indians disposed to hostility. His good conduct 
contributed to allay their irritation, and he was par- 
ticularly successful in conciliating his immediate neigh- 
bors, the Menomonies. They had taken an active 

1 Carver, Travels, 47. library of the Maryland Historical 

2 Gorell, Journal, MS. The origi- Society, to whom it was presented by 
nal manuscript is preserved in the Robert Gilmor, Esq. 



Chap.XYH.] letter from ethebdtgton. 



319 



part in the late war between France and England, 
and their spirits were humbled by the losses they 
had sustained, as well as by recent ravages of the 
sniali-pox. Gorell summoned them to a council, and 
delivered a speech, in which he avoided wounding 
their pride, but at the same time assumed a tone of 
firmness and decision, such as can alone command 
an Indian's respect. He told them that the King 
of England had heard of their ill conduct, but that 
he was ready to forget all that had passed. If, how- 
ever, they shoidd again give him cause of complaint, 
he would send an army, numerous as the trees of 
the forest, and utterly destroy them. Flattering ex- 
pressions of confidence and esteem succeeded, and the 
whole was enforced by the distribution of a few pres- 
ents. The Menomonies replied by assurances of 
friendship, more sincerely made and faithfully kept 
than could have been expected. As Indians of the 
other tribes came from time to time to the fort, they 
met with a similar reception, and, in his whole in- 
tercourse with them, the constant aim of the com- 
mandant was to gain their good will. The result 
was most happy for himself and his garrison. 

On the fifteenth of June, 1763, an Ottawa Indian 
brought to Gorell the following letter from Captain 
Etherington : — 

" Michillimackinac, June 11, 1763. 

i; Dear Sir: 

" This place was taken by surprise, on the fourth 
instant, by the Chippeways, [Ojibwas.] at which time 
Lieutenant Jamet and twenty [fifteen] more were 
killed, and all the rest taken prisoners ; but our good 
friends, the Ottawas, have taken Lieutenant Lesley, me, 



320 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



and eleven men, out of their hands, and have promised 
to reinstate us again. You'll therefore, on the receipt 
of this, which I send by a canoe of Ottawas, set out 
with all your garrison, and what English traders you 
have with you, and come with the Indian who gives 
you this, who will conduct you safe to me. You 
must be sure to follow the instruction you receive 
from the bearer of this, as you are by no means to 
come to this post before you see me at the village, 

twenty miles from this I must once more beg 

you'll lose no time in coming to join me; at the 
same time, be very careful, and always be on your 
guard. I long much to see you, and am, dear sir, 
"Your most humble serv't. 

" Geo. Etherington. 

" J. GOE-ELL, 

" Royal Americans." 

On receiving this letter, Gorell summoned the Me- 
nomonies to a council, told them what the Ojibwas 
had done, and said that he and his soldiers were 
going to Michillimackinac to restore order, adding, 
that during his absence he commended the fort to 
their care. Great numbers of the Winnebagoes and 
of the Sacs and Foxes afterwards arrived, and Gorell 
addressed them in nearly the same words. Presents 
were given them, and it soon appeared that the 
greater part were well disposed towards the Eng- 
lish, though a few were inclined to prevent their de- 
parture, and even to threaten hostility. At this 
juncture, a fortunate incident occurred. A Dahcotah 
chief arrived with a message from his people to 
the following import: They had heard, he said, of 
the bad conduct of the Ojibwas. They hoped that 



Chap. XVII] 



GEEEN BAY ABANDONED. 



321 



the tribes of Green Bay would not follow their exam- 
ple, but, on the contrary, would protect the English 
garrison. Unless they did so, the Dahcotah would 
fall upon them, and take ample revenge. This au- 
spicious interference must, no doubt, be ascribed to 
the hatred with which the Dahcotah had long re- 
garded the Ojibwas. That the latter should espouse 
one side of the quarrel, was abundant reason to the 
Dahcotah for adopting the other. 

Some of the Green Bay Indians were also at en- 
mity with the Ojibwas, and all opposition to the 
departure of the English was now at an end. In- 
deed, some of the more friendly offered to escort the 
garrison on its way ; and on the twenty-first of June, 
Gorell's party embarked in several bateaux, accompa- 
nied by ninety warriors in canoes. Approaching Isle 
du Castor, near the mouth of Green Bay, an alarm 
was given that the Ojibwas were lying there in am- 
bush ; on which the Menomonies raised the war-song, 
stripped themselves, and prepared to do battle in be- 
half of the English. The alarm, however, proved 
false; and, having crossed Lake Michigan in safety, 
the party arrived at the village of L'Arbre Croche 
on the thirtieth. The Ottawas came down to the 
beach to salute them with a discharge of guns, and, 
on landing, they were presented with the pipe of 
peace. Captain Etherington and Lieutenant Leslie, 
with eleven men, were in , the village, detained as 
prisoners, though treated with kindness. It was 
thought that the Ottawas intended to disarm the 
party of Gorell also ; but the latter gave out that he 
would resist such an attempt, and his soldiers were 
permitted to retain their weapons. 

Several succeeding clays were occupied by the 
41 



322 



THE MASSACRE. 



[Chap. XVII. 



Indians in holding councils. Those from Green Bay 
requested the Ottawas to set their prisoners at lib- 
erty, and the latter, at length, assented. A difficulty 
still remained, as the Ojibwas had declared that they 
would prevent the English from passing down to 
Montreal. Their chiefs were therefore summoned; 
and being at this time, as we have seen, in a state 
of much alarm, they at length reluctantly yielded the 
point. On the eighteenth of July, the English, es- 
corted by a fleet of Indian canoes, left L'Arbre Croche, 
and reaching, without interruption, the portage of 
the Eiver Ottawa, descended to Montreal, where they 
all arrived in safety, on the thirteenth day of Au- 
gust. 1 Except the garrison of Detroit, not a British 
soldier now remained in the region of the lakes. 



i Gorell, Journal, MS. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. 

We have followed the war to its farthest confines, 
and watched it in its remotest operations; not be- 
cause there is any thing especially worthy to be 
chronicled in the capture of a backwoods fort, and 
the slaughter of a few soldiers, but because these 
acts exhibit some of the characteristic traits of the 
actors. It was along the line of the British fron- 
tier that the war raged with its most destructive vio- 
lence. To destroy the garrisons, and then turn upon 
the settlements, had been the original plan of the 
Indians ; and while Pontiac was pushing the siege 
of Detroit, and the smaller interior posts were treach- 
erously assailed, the tempest was gathering which 
was soon to burst along the whole frontier. 

In 1763, the British settlements did not extend 
beyond the Alleghanies. In the province of New 
York, they reached no farther than the German 
Plats, on the Mohawk. In Pennsylvania, the town 
of Bedford might be regarded as the extreme verge 
of the frontier, while the settlements of Virginia 
extended to a corresponding distance. Through the 
adjacent wilderness ran various lines of military 
posts, to make good the communication from point 
to point. One of the most important among these 
passed through the country of the Six Nations, and 



324 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. . [Chap. XVIII. 

guarded the route between the northern colonies 
and Lake Ontario. This communication was formed 
by the Hudson, the Mohawk, Wood Creek, the 
Oneida Lake, and the River Oswego. It was de- 
fended by Forts Stanwix, Brewerton, Oswego, and 
two or three smaller posts. Near the western ex- 
tremity of Lake Ontario stood Fort Niagara, at the 
mouth of the river whence it derived its name. It 
was a strong and extensive work, guarding the 
access to the whole interior country, both by way 
of the Oswego communication just mentioned, and 
by that of Canada and the St. Lawrence. From 
Fort Niagara the route lay by a portage past the 
great falls to PresquTsle, on Lake Erie, where the 
town of Erie now stands. Thence the traveller 
could pass, by a short overland passage, to Fort Le 
Bceuf, on a branch of the Alleghany ; thence, by 
water, to Venango; and thence, down the Alleghany, 
to Fort Pitt. This last-mentioned post stood on the 
present site of Pittsburg — the point of land formed 
by the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monon- 
gahela. Its position w T as as captivating to the eye 
of an artist as it was commanding in a military 
point of view. On the left, the Monongahela de- 
scended through a woody valley of singular beauty; 
on the right, flowed the Alleghany, beneath steep 
and lofty banks ; and both united, in front, to form 
the broad Ohio, which, flanked by picturesque hills 
and declivities, began at this point its interminable 
progress towards the Mississippi. The place already 
had its historic associations, though, as yet, their 
roughness was unmellowed by the lapse of time. It 
was here that the French had erected Fort du 
Quesne. Within a few miles, Braddock encountered 



Chap. XVHL] 



TORT PITT. 



325 



his * disastrous overthrow ; and on the hill behind 
the fort, Grant's Highlanders and Lewis' Virginians 
had been surrounded and captured, though not with- 
out a stout resistance on the part of the latter. 

Fort Pitt was built by General Stanwix, in the 
year 1759, upon the ruins of Fort du Quesne, de- 
stroyed by General Forbes. It was a strong fortifi- 
cation, with ramparts of earth, faced with brick on 
the side looking down the Ohio. Its walls have 
long since been levelled to the ground, and over 
their ruins have risen warehouses, and forges with 
countless furnace chimneys, rolling up their black 
volumes of smoke. Where once the bark canoe 
was tied to the bank, a throng of steamers now 
lie moored along the crowded levee. 

Fort Pitt stood far aloof in the forest, and one 
might journey eastward full two hundred miles, 
before the English settlements began to thicken. 
Behind it lay a broken and woody tract ; then 
succeeded the great barrier of the Alleghanies, trav- 
ersing the country in successive ridges ; and beyond 
these lay vast woods, extending to the Susquehanna. 
Eastward of this river, cabins of settlers became 
more numerous, until, hi the neighborhood of Lan- 
caster, the country assumed an appearance of pros- 
perity and cultivation. Two roads led from Fort 
Pitt to the settlements, one of which was cut by 
General Braddock in his disastrous march across the 
mountains, from Cumberland, in the year 1755. 
The other, which was the more frequented, passed 
by Carlisle and Bedford, and was made by General 
Forbes, in 1758. Leaving the fort by this latter 
route, the traveller would find himself, after a jour- 
ney of fifty-six miles, at the little post of Ligonier, 

BB 



326 FRONTIER FORTS ASD SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. XYIH. 



whence he would soon reach Port Bedford, *out 
a hundred miles from Fort Pitt. It was nestled 
among mountains, and surrounded by clearings and 
log cabins. Passing several small posts and settle- 
ments, he would arrive at Carlisle, nearly a hun- 
dred miles farther east, a place resembling Bed- 
ford in its general aspect, although of greater ex- 
tent. Numerous houses of settlers were scattered 
here and there among the valleys on each side of 
the road from Port Pitt, so that the number of fam- 
ilies beyond the Susquehanna amounted to several 
hundreds, thinly distributed over a great space. 
Prom Carlisle to Harris' Perry, now Harrisburg, on 
the Susquehanna, was but a short distance; and 
from thence, the road led directly into the heart of 
the settlements. The frontiers of Virginia bore a 
general resemblance to those of Pennsylvania. It is 
not necessary at present to indicate minutely the 
position of their scattered settlements, and the small 
posts intended to protect them. 1 Along these bor- 
ders all had remained quiet, and nothing occurred to 
excite alarm or uneasiness, until the twenty-seventh 
of May, when, at about dusk in the evening, a 
party of Indians was seen from Port Pitt, descend- 
ing the banks of the Alleghany, with laden pack- 
horses. They built fires, and encamped on the 
shore till daybreak, when they all crossed over to 
the fort, bringing with them a great quantity of 
valuable furs. These they sold to the traders, de- 
manding, hi exchange, bullets, hatchets, and gun- 

i The authorities for the foregoing cellent antiquarian work, published 

topographical sketch are dravm from at Pittsburg: together with various 

the Pennsylvania Historical Collec- maps, plans, and contemporary pa- 

tions, and the Olden Time, an ex- pers. 



Chap. XVIII.] 



ALARMS AT FORT PITT. 



327 



powder; but their conduct was so peculiar as to 
excite the just suspicion that they came either as 
spies or with some other insidious design. 1 Hardly 
were they gone when tidings came in that Colonel 
Clapham, with several persons, both men and women, 
had been murdered and scalped near the fort; and it 
was soon after discovered that the inhabitants of an 
Indian town, a few miles up the Alleghany, had 
totally abandoned their cabins, as if bent on some 
plan of mischief. On the next day, two soldiers 
were shot within a mile of the fort. An express 
was hastily sent to Venango, to warn the little gar- 
rison of danger; but he returned almost immediately, 
having been twice fired at, and severely wounded. 2 
A trader named Calhoun now came in from the 
Indian village of Tuscaroras, with intelligence of a 
yet more startling kind. At eleven o'clock on the 
night of the twenty-seventh, a chief named Shingas, 
with several of the principal warriors in the place, 
had come to Calhoun's cabin, and earnestly begged 



1 Gordon, Hist. Pa. 62.2. 

2 MS. Letter — Bouquet to Am- 
herst, June 5. 

Extract from a letter — Fort Pitt, 
May 31, (Penn. Gaz. No. 1798.) 

" We have most melancholy Ac- 
counts here — The Indians have 
broke out in several Places, and 
murdered Colonel Clapham and his 
Family ; also two of our Soldiers at 
the Saw-mill, near the Fort, and two 
Scalps are taken from each man. 
An Indian has brought a War-Belt 
to Tuscarora, and says Detroit is in- 
vested ; and that St. Dusky is cut 
off, and Ensign Pawley made Pris- 
oner — Levy's Goods are stopt at 
Tuscarora by the Indians — Last 
Night eleven Men were attacked at 
Beaver Creek, eight or nine of whom, 
it is said, were killed — And Twenty- 



five of Macrae's and Alison's Horses, 
loaded with Skins, are all taken." 

Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Captain Ecuyer to Colonel Bouquet.. 
" Fort Pitt, 29th May, 1763. 

" Just as I had finished my Letter, 
Three men came in from Clapham's, 
with the Melancholy News, that 
Yesterday, at three O'clock in the 
Afternoon, the Indians Murdered 
Clapham, and Every Body in his 
House : These three men were out 
at Work, & Escaped through the 
Woods. I Immediately Armed them, 
and sent them to Assist our People 
at Bushy Run. The Indians have 
told Byerly (at Bushy Run) to Leave 
his Place in Four Days, or he and 
his Family would all "be murdered: 
I am Uneasy for the little Posts — 
As for this, I will answer for it." 



* 



328 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. XVTTL 

him to depart, declaring that they did not wish to 
see him killed before their eyes. The Ottawas and 
Ojibwas, they said, had taken up the hatchet, and 
captured Detroit, Sandusky, and all the forts of the 
interior. The Delawares and Shawanoes of the Ohio 
were following their example, and were murdering 
all the traders among them. Calhoun and the 
thirteen men in his employ lost no time in taking 
their departure. The Indians forced them to leave 
their guns behind, promising that they would give 
them three warriors to guide them in safety to Fort 
Pitt; but the whole proved a piece of characteristic 
dissimulation and treachery. The three guides led 
them into an ambuscade at the mouth of Beaver 
Creek. A volley of balls showered upon them ; 
eleven were killed on the spot, and Calhoun and 
two others alone made their escape. 1 

The intelligence concerning the fate of the traders 
in the Indian villages proved but too true. They 
were slaughtered every where, without mercy, and 
often under circumstances of the foulest barbarity. 
A boy named M'Cullough, captured during the 
French war, and at this time a prisoner among the 
Indians, relates, in his published narrative, that he, 
with a party of Indian children, went out, one even- 
ing, to gaze with awe and wonder at the body of 
a trader, which lay by the side of the path, mangled 
with tomahawks, and stuck full of arrows. 2 It was 

1 Copy of intelligence brought to Dickson, among the white people) 
Fort Pitt by Mr. Calhoun, MS. came to our house ; he had a pistol 

2 M'Cullough gives the following and a large scalping-knife, concealed 
account of the murder of another of under his blanket, belted round his 
the traders, named Green : — body. He informed Kettoolihahnd, 

"About sunrise, Mussoughwhese (for that was my adopted brother's 
(an Indian, my adopted brother's name,) that he came to kill Tom 
nephew, known by the name of Ben Green ; but Kettoohhalend endeav- 



Chap. XVIIL] SLAUGHTER OF TRADERS. 



329 



stated in the journals of the day, that more than a 
hundred traders fell victims, and that the property 
taken from them, or seized at the capture of the 
interior posts, amounted to an incredible sum. 1 

The Moravian Loskiel relates that in the villages 
of the Hurons or Wyandots, meaning probably those 
of Sandusky, the traders were so numerous that the 
Indians were afraid to attack them openly, and had 
recourse to the following stratagem: They told their 
unsuspecting victims that the surrounding tribes had 
risen in arms, and were soon coming that way, bent 
on killing every Englishman they could find. The 
Wyandots averred that they would gladly protect 
their friends the white men; but that it would be 
impossible to do so, unless the latter would consent, 
for the sake of appearances, to become their prisoners. 



oured to persuade him off it. They 
walked out together, and Green fol- 
lowed them, endeavouring, as I sup- 
pose, to discover the cause of the 
alarm the night before ; in a short 
time they returned to the house, and 
immediately went out again. Green 
asked me to bring him his horse, as 
we heard the bell a short distance 
off ; he then went after the Indians 
again, and I went for the horse. As 
I was returning, I observed them 
coming out of a house about two 
hundred yards from ours ; Kettooh- 
halend was foremost, Green in the 
middle ; I took but slight notice of 
them, until I heard the report of a 
pistol ; I cast my eyes towards them, 
and observed the smoke, and saw 
Green standing on the side of the 
path, with his hands across his 
breast; I thought it had been him 
that shot; he stood a few minutes, 
then fell on his face across the path. 
I instantly got off the horse, and 
held him by the bridle, — Kettoohha- 
lend sunk his pipe tomahawk into his 
skull ; Mussoughwhese stabbed him 
under the armpit with his scalping- 

42 



knife ; he had shot him between the 
shoulders with his pistol. The 
squaws gathered about him and 
stripped him naked, trailed him 
down the bank, and plunged him 
into the creek ; there was a freshet in 
the creek at the time, which carried 
him off. Mussoughwhese then came 
to me, (where I was holding the 
horse, as I had not moved from the 
spot where I was when Green was 
shot,) with the bloody knife in his 
hand ; he told me that he was coming 
to kill me next ; he reached out his 
hand and took hold of the bridle, 
telling me that that was his horse ; I 
was glad to parley with him on the 
terms, and delivered the horse to 
him. All the Indians in the town 
immediately collected together, and 
started off to the Salt Licks, where 
the rest of the traders were, and 
murdered the whole of them, and 
divided their goods amongst them, 
and likewise their horses." 

i Gent. Mag. XXXIII. 413. The 
loss is here stated at the greatly ex- 
aggerated amount of £ 500,000. 

BB* 



330 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. X VEIL 

In this case, they said, the hostile Indians would 
refrain from injuring them, and they should be set 
at liberty as soon as the danger was past. The 
traders fell into the snare. They gave up their 
arms, and, the better to carry out the deception, 
even consented to be bound ; but no sooner was 
this accomplished, than their treacherous counsellors 
murdered them all in cold blood. 1 

A curious incident, relating to this period, is given 
by the missionary Heckewelder. Strange as the 
story may appear, it is in strict accordance with In- 
dian character and usage, and perhaps need not be 
rejected as wholly void of truth. The name of the 
person to whom it relates several times occurs in 
the manuscript journals and correspondence of offi- 
cers in the Indian country. A trader named Chap- 
man was made prisoner by the Indians near Detroit. 
For some time, he was protected by the humane in- 
terference of a Frenchman ; but at length his cap- 
tors resolved to burn him alive. He was tied to 
the stake, and the fire was kindled. As the heat 
grew intolerable, one of the Indians handed to him 
a bowl rilled with broth. The wretched man, scorch- 
ing with fiery thirst, eagerly snatched the vessel, 
and applied it to his lips ; but the liquid was pur- 
posely made scalding hot. With a sudden burst of 
rage, he flung back the bowl and its contents into 
the face of the Indian. "He is mad! he is mad!" 
shouted the crowd; and though, the moment before, 
they had been keenly anticipating the delight of 
seeing him burn, they hastily put out the fire, re- 
leased him from the stake, and set him at liberty. 2 



i Loskiel, 99. 



2 Heckewelder, Hist. Ind. Nat. 250. 



Chap. XVIII] FOET LIGONIER— FORT BEDFORD. 



331 



Such is the superstitious respect which the Indians 
entertain for every form of insanity. 

While the alarming incidents just mentioned were 
occurring at Fort Pitt, the garrison of Fort Ligonier 
received yet more unequivocal tokens of hostility ; for 
one morning a volley of bullets was sent among 
them, with no other effect, however, than killing a 
few horses. In the vicinity of Fort Bedford, several 
men were killed ; on which the inhabitants were mus- 
tered and organized, and the garrison kept constantly 
on the alert. A few of the best woodsmen were 
formed into a company, dressed and painted like In- 
dians. A party of the enemy suddenly appeared, 
whooping and brandishing their tomahawks, at the 
skirts of the forest ; on which these counterfeit sav- 
ages dashed upon them at full gallop, routing them in 
an instant, and driving them far though the woods. 1 

At Fort Pitt every preparation was made for an 
attack. The houses and cabins outside the rampart 
were levelled to the ground, and every morning, at 
an hour before dawn, the drum beat, and the troops 
were ordered to their alarm posts. 2 The garrison, 
commanded by Captain Ecuyer, consisted of three 
hundred and thirty soldiers, traders, and backwoods- 



1 Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 1799. 
I shall frequently refer to the columns 
of this journal, which are filled with 
letters, and extracts from letters, writ- 
ten at different parts of the frontier, 
and containing very minute and au- 
thentic details of the events which 
daily occurred. 

2 Extract from a Letter — Fort 
Pitt, June 16, 1763, (Penn. Gaz. No. 
1801.) 

" We have Alarms from, and 
Skirmishes with, the Indians every 
Day; but they have done us little 
Harm as yet. Yesterday I was out 



with a Party of Men, when we were 
fired upon, and one of the Serjeants 
was killed ; but we beat off the In- 
dians, and brought the Man in with 
his Scalp on. Last Night the Bul- 
lock Guard was fired upon, when one 
Cow was killed. We are obliged to 
be on Duty Night and Day. The 
Indians have cut off above 100 of 
our Traders in the Woods, besides 
all our little Posts. We have Plenty 
of Provisions ; and the Fort is in 
such a good Posture of Defence, that, 
with God's Assistance, we can defend 
it against 1000 Indians." 



332 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. XVHL 



men, and there were also in the fort about one hun- 
dred women, and a still greater number of children, 
most of them belonging to the families of settlers 
who were preparing to build their cabins in the 
neighborhood. 1 

The sudden and desultory outrages with which the 
war began, and which only served to put the garrison 
on their guard, prove that among the neighboring 
Indians there was no chief of sufficient power to 
curb their wayward temper, and force them to con- 
form to any preconcerted plan. The authors of the 
mischief were unruly young warriors, fevered with 
eagerness to win the first scalp, and setting at 
defiance the authority of their elders. These petty 
annoyances, far from abating, continued for many 
successive clays, and kept the garrison in a state of 
restless alarm. It was highly dangerous to venture 
outside the walls, and a few who attempted it were 
shot and scalped by lurking Indians. " They have 
the impudence," writes an officer, " to fire all night 
at our sentinels ; " nor were these attacks confined to 
the night, for even during the day no man willingly 
exposed his head above the rampart. The surround- 
ing woods were known to be full of prowling Indians, 
whose number seemed daily increasing, though as 
yet they had made no attempt at a general attack. 
At length, on the afternoon of the twenty-second of 
June, a party of them appeared at the farthest ex- 
tremity of the cleared lands behind the fort, driving 
off the horses which were grazing there, and killing 
the cattle. Xo sooner was this accomplished than 
a general fire was opened upon the fort from every 

1 MS. Letter — Ecuyer to Bouquet, June 5. 



Chap. XVIII.] 



INDIAN ADVICE. 



333 



side at once, though at so great a distance that only 
two men were killed. The garrison replied by a dis- 
charge of howitzers, the shells of which, bursting in 
the midst of the Indians, greatly amazed and dis- 
concerted them. As it grew dark, their fire slackened, 
though, throughout the night, the flash of guns was 
seen at frequent intervals, followed by the whooping 
of the invisible assailants. 

At nine o'clock on the following morning, several 
Indians approached the fort with the utmost confi- 
dence, and took their stand close to the outside of 
the ditch, where one of them, a Delaware, named 
the Turtle's Heart, addressed the garrison as fol- 
lows : — 

" My brothers, we that stand here are your friends ; 
but we have bad news to tell you. Six great nations 
of Indians have taken up the hatchet, and cut off all 
the English garrisons, excepting yours. They are 
now on their way to destroy you also. 

" My brothers, we are your friends, and we wish 
to save your lives. What we desire you to do is 
this : You must leave this fort, with all your women 
and children, and go down to the English settle- 
ments, where you will be safe. There are many bad 
Indians already here ; but we will protect you from 
them. You must go at once, because if you wait 
till the six great nations arrive here, you will all be 
killed, and we can do nothing to protect you." 

To this proposal, by which the Indians hoped to 
gain a safe and easy possession of the fort, Captain 
Ecuyer made the following reply. The vein of hu- 
mor perceptible in it may serve to indicate that he 
was under no great apprehension for the safety of 
his garrison. 



334 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. XVIII. 

" My brothers, we are very grateful for your kind- 
ness, though we are convinced that you must be 
mistaken in what you have told us about the forts 
being captured. As for ourselves, we have plenty of 
provisions, and are able to keep the fort against all 
the nations of Indians that may dare to attack it. 
We are very well off in this place, and we mean to 
stay here. 

" My brothers, as you have shown yourselves such 
true friends, we feel bound in gratitude to inform 
you that an army of six thousand English will short- 
ly arrive here, and that another army of three thou- 
sand is gone up the lakes, to punish the Ottawas 
and Ojibwas. A third has gone to the frontiers of 
Virginia, where they will be joined by your enemies, 
the Cherokees and Catawbas, who are coming here 
to destroy you. Therefore take pity on your women 
and children, and get out of the way as soon as 
possible. We have told you this in confidence, out 
of our great solicitude lest any of you should be hurt ; 
and we hope that you will not tell the other In- 
dians, lest they should escape from our vengeance." 1 

This politic invention of the three armies had an 
excellent effect, and so startled the Indians, that, on 
the next day, most of them withdrew from the neigh- 
borhood, and went to meet a great body of warriors, 
who were advancing from the westward to attack 
the fort. On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, a 
soldier named Gray, belonging to the garrison of 
PresquTsle, came in with the report that, more than 
a week before, that little post had been furiously 
attacked by upwards of two hundred Indians from 

1 MS. Report of Alexander M'Kee, deputy agent for Indian affairs at 
Fort Pitt. 



Chap. XVIII] 



DISASTROUS TIDINGS. 



335 



Detroit, that they had assailed it for three days, re- 
peatedly setting it on fire, and had at length under- 
mined it so completely, that the garrison was forced to 
capitulate, on condition of being allowed to retire in 
safety to Fort Pitt. No sooner, however, had they left 
their shelter, than the Indians fell upon them, and, 
as Gray declared, butchered them all, except himself 
and one other man, who darted into the woods, and 
escaped amid the confusion, hearing behind them, as 
they fled, the screams of their murdered comrades. 
This account proved erroneous, as the garrison were 
carried by their captors in safety to Detroit. Some 
time after this event, Captain Dalzell's detachment, 
on their way to Detroit, stopped at the place, and 
found, close to the ruined fort, the hair of several of 
the men, which had been shorn off, as a preliminary 
step in the process of painting and bedecking them 
like Indian warriors. From this it appears that some 
of the unfortunate soldiers were adopted on the spot 
into the tribes of their conquerors. In a previous 
chapter, a detailed account has been given of the 
defence of Presqu'Isle, and its final capture. 

Gray informed Captain Ecuyer that, a few days 
before the attack on the garrison, they had seen a 
schooner on the lake, approaching from the west- 
ward. She had sent a boat on shore with the tidings 
that Detroit had been beleaguered, for more than six 
weeks, by many hundred Indians, and that a detach- 
ment of ninety-six men had been attacked near that 
place, of whom only about thirty had escaped, the 
rest being either killed on the spot or put to death 
by slow torture. The panic-stricken soldier, in his 
flight from Presqu'Isle, had passed the spots where 
lately had stood the little forts of Le Bceuf and 



336 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. XYJU. 



Venango. Botli were burnt level with the ground,, 
and he surmised that the whole of their' wretched 
garrisons had fallen victims. 1 The disaster proved 
less fatal than his fears led him to suspect; for. on 
the same day on which he arrived, Ensign Price, the 
officer commanding at Le Bceuf, was seen approach- 
ing along the hank of the Alleghany, followed by 
seven haggard and half-famished soldiers. 2 On the 
evening of the eighteenth, a ffreat multitude of In- 
dians had surrounded his post, the available defences 
of which, at that time, consisted of only one block- 
house. Showering bullets and fire-arrows against it, 
they soon set it in flames ; and at midnight, in spite 
of every effort, the whole upper part of the building 
was in a light blaze. The assailants now gathered 
in a half circle before the entrance, eagerly expect- 
ing the moment when the inmates, stifled amid flame 
and smoke, should rush out upon certain death. 



1 MS. Letter — Ecuyer to Bou- 
quet, June 26. 

2 Extract from a Letter — Fort 
Pitt, June 26, fPenn. Gaz. No. 1802.) 

" This Morning 1 , Ensign Price, of 
the R,oyal Americans, with Part of 
his Garrison, arrived here, being sep- 
arated from the rest in the night. — 
The Enemy attacked his Post, and 
set it on Fire, and while they watched 
the Door of the House, he got out 
on the other side, and the Indians 
continued firing a long Time after- 
wards, imagining that the Garrison 
was in it, and that they were con- 
sumed with the House. — He touched 
at Venango, found the Fort burnt to 
the Ground, and saw one of our Ex- 
presses lying killed on the Road. 

"Four o'clock in the Afternoon. 
Just now came in one of the Soldiers 
from Presque Isle, who says, Mr. 
Christie fought two Days ; that the 
Enemy Fifty times set Fire to the 
Blockhouse, but that they as often 



put it out : That they then under- 
mined the House, and was ready 
to blow it up, when they offered Mr. 
Christie Terms, who accepted them, 
viz., That he, and his Garrison, was 
to be conducted to this Place. — The 
Soldier also says, he suspected they 
intended to put them all to Death; 
and that on hearing a Woman scream 
out, he supposed they were murdering 
her : upon which he and another Sol- 
dier came immediately off, but knows 
nothing of the rest : That the Vessel 
from Niagara was in Sight, but be- 
lieves she had no Provisions, as the 
Indians told them they had cut off 
Little Niagara, and destroyed 800 
Barrels : And that he thinks, by 
what he saw, Venango had capitu- 
lated." 

The soldier here spoken of was 
no doubt Gray, who was mentioned 
above, though his story is somewhat 
differently given in the letter of Cap- 
tain Ecuyer, just cited. 



Chap. XVIII] DESTRUCTION OF VENANGO. ' 337 



But Price and his followers, with the energy of des- 
peration, hewed an opening through the massive tim- 
bers which formed the hack wall of the blockhouse, 
and escaped unperceived into the dark woods behind. 
For some time, they continued to hear the reports 
of the Indian guns, as these painted demons were 
still leaping and yelling in front of the blazing 
building, firing into the loopholes, and exulting in 
the thought that their enemies were suffering the 
agonies of death within. The fugitives pressed on- 
ward through the whole of the next day, until, at 
one o'clock of the succeeding night, they came to 
the spot where Fort Venango had stood. Nothing 
remained of it but piles of glowing embers, among 
which lay the half-consumed bodies of its hapless 
garrison. They continued their journey; but six of 
the party soon gave out, and were left behind in 
the woods, while the remainder were half dead with 
fear, hunger, and exhaustion, before their eyes were 
gladdened by the friendly walls of Fort Pitt. 1 

Not a man remained alive to tell the fate of Ve- 
nango; and it was not until some time after that an 
Indian, who was present at its destruction, described 
the scene to Sir William Johnson. A large body of 
Senecas gained entrance under pretence of friendship, 
then closed the gates, fell upon the garrison, and 
butchered them all except the commanding officer, 
Lieutenant Gordon, whom they tortured over a slow 
fire for several successive nights, till he expired. 
This done, they burnt the place to the ground, and 
departed. 2 

1 MS. Letter — Price to Bouquet, years since, some traces of Fort Ve- 
June 27. nango were yet visible. The follow- 

2 MS. Johnson Papers. Not many ing °descriotion of them is from the 

43' cc 



338 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTIJEMENTS. [Chap. XVIII. 



While Le Beeuf and Venango were thus assailed. 
Fort Ligonier was also attacked by a large body of 
Indians, who fired upon it with great fury and per- 
tinacity, but were beaten off after a hard day's 
fighting. Fort Augusta, on the Susquehanna, was 
at the same time menaced ; but the garrison being 
strengthened by a timely reenforcement, the Indians 
abandoned their purpose. Carlisle, Bedford, and the 
small intermediate posts, all experienced some effects 
of savage hostility, 1 while among the settlers, whose 
houses were scattered throughout the adjacent val- 
leys, outrages were perpetrated, and sufferings en- 
dured, which defy all attempt at description. 

At Fort Pitt, every preparation was made to repel 
the attack which was hourly expected. A part of 
the rampart, undermined by the spring floods, had 
fallen into the ditch; but. by dint of great labor, this 
injury was repaired. A line of palisades was erected 
along the ramparts, the barracks were made shot- 



Historical Collections of Pennsylva- 
nia : — 

" Its ruins plainly indicate its de- 
struction by fire. Burnt stone, melted 
glass and iron, leave no doubt of 
this. All. through the groundworks 
are to be found great quantities of 
mouldering bones. Amongst the 
ruins, knives, gun-barrels, locks, and 
musket-balls have been frequently 
found, and still continue to be found. 
About the centre of the area are seen 
the ruins of the magazine, in which, 
with what truth I cannot vouch, is 
said to be a well. The same tradi- 
tion also adds, 'And in that well 
there is a cannon:' but no examina- 
tion has been made for it." 

1 Extract from a Letter — Fort 
Bedford, June 30, 1763. (Penn. Gaz. 
No. 1802.) 

"This Morning a Party of the 
Enemy attacked fifteen Persons, who 



were mowing in Mr. Croghan's 
Field, within a Mile of the Garrison ; 
and Xews is brought in of two Men 
being killed, — Eight o'clock. Two 
Men are brought in. alive, toma- 
hawked and scalped more than Halt 
the Head over — Our Parade just 
now presents a Scene of bloody and 
savage Cruelty : three Men. two of 
which are in the Bloom of Life, the 
other an old man, lying scalped (two 
of them still alive) thereon: Any 
thing feigned in the most fabulous 
Romance, cannot parallel the horrid 
Sight now before me : the Gashes 
the poor People bear are most terri- 
fying. — Ten o'clock. They are just 
expired — One of them, after being 
tomahawked and scalped, ran a little 
way, and got on a Loft in Mr. Cro- 
ghan's House, where he lay till found 
by a Party of the Garrison." 



Chap. XYHI] 



DAXGES OF FORT PITT. 



339 



proof, to protect the women and children ; and as 
the interior buildings were all of wood, a rude fire 
engine was constructed, to extinguish any flames 
which might be kindled by the burning arrows of 
the Indians. Several weeks, however, elapsed with- 
out any determined attack from the enemy, who 
were engaged in their bloody work among the settle- 
ments and smaller posts. From the beginning of 
July until towards its close, nothing occurred except 
a series of petty and futile attacks, by which the 
Indians abundantly exhibited their malicious inten- 
tions, without doing harm to the garrison. During 
the whole of this time, the communication with the 
settlements was completely cut off, so that no letters 
were written from the fort, or, at all events, none 
reached their, destination ; and we are therefore left 
to depend upon a few meagre official reports, as our 
only sources of information. 

On the twenty-sixth of July, a small party of In- 
dians was seen approaching the gate, displaying a 
flag, which one of them had some time before re- 
ceived as a present from the English commander. 
On the strength of this token, they were admitted, 
and proved to be chiefs of distinction; among whom 
were Shingas, Turtle's Heart, and others, who had 
hitherto maintained an appearance of friendship. 
Being admitted to a council, one of them addressed 
Captain Ecuyer and his officers to the following 
effect : — 

"Brothers, what we are about to say comes from 
our hearts, and not from our lips. 

"Brothers, we wish to hold fast the chain of 
friendship — that ancient chain which our forefathers 
held with their brethren the English. You have 



340 



FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. XVIII. 



let your end of the chain fall to the ground, but 
ours is still fast within our hands. Why do you 
complain that our young men have fired at your 
soldiers, and killed your cattle and your horses'? 
You yourselves are the cause of this. You marched 
your armies into our country, and built forts here, 
though we told you, again and again, that we wished 
you to remove. My brothers, this land is ours, and 
not yours. 

" My brothers, two days ago we received a great 
belt of wampum from the Ottawas of Detroit, and 
the message they sent us was in these words : — 

" ' Grandfathers the Delawares, by this belt we 
inform you that in a short time we intend to pass, 
in a very great body, through your country, on our 
way to strike the English at the forks of the Ohio. 
Grandfathers, you know us to be a headstrong 
people. We are determined to stop at nothing, and 
as we expect to be very hungry, we will seize and 
eat up every thing that comes in our way.' 1 

" Brothers, you have heard the words of the Ot- 
tawas. If you leave this place immediately, and go 
home to your wives and children, no harm will 
come of it; but if you stay, you must blame your- 
selves alone for what may happen. Therefore we 
desire you to remove." 

To the very just and reasonable statement of 
wrongs contained in this speech, Captain Ecuyer re- 
plied, by urging the shallow pretence that the forts 
were built for the purpose of supplying the Indians 
with clothes and ammunition. He then absolutely 
refused to leave the place. " I have," he said, 

i This is a common Indian metaphor. To destroy an enemy is, in their 
phrase, to eat him up. 



Chap. XVffl.] THREATS OP THE COMMANDANT. 



341 



" warriors, provision, and ammunition, to defend it 
three years against all the Indians in the woods; and 
we shall never abandon it as long as a "white man 
lives in America. I despise the Ottawas, and am 
very much surprised at our brothers the Delawares, 
for proposing to us to leave this place and go home. 
This is our home. You have attacked us without 
reason or provocation • you have murdered and plun- 
dered our warriors and traders ; you have taken our 
horses and cattle; and at the same time you tell 
us your hearts are good towards your brethren the 
English. How can I have faith in you? Therefore, 
now, brothers, I will advise you to go home to your 
towns, and take care of your wives and children. 
Moreover, I tell you that if any of you appear 
again about this fort, I will throw bombshells, 
which will burst and blow you to atoms, and fire 
cannon among you, loaded with a whole bag full of 
bullets. Therefore take care, for I don't want to 
hurt you." 1 

The chiefs departed much displeased with their 
reception. Though the course pursued by Captain 
Ecuyer was a wise and justifiable one, and though 
the building of forts in the Indian country could 
not in this instance be charged as a crime, except 
by the most overstrained casuistry, yet we cannot 
refrain from sympathizing with the intolerable hard- 
ship to which the progress of civilization subjected 
the unfortunate tenants of the wilderness, and which 
goes far to extenuate the perfidy and cruelty which 
marked their conduct throughout the whole course 
of the war. 

i MS. Report of Conference with the Indians at Fort Pitt, July 26, 1763. 



342 FRONTIER FORTS AND SETTLEMENTS. [Chap. XVIII. 



Disappointed of gaining a bloodless possession of 
the fort, the Indians now, for the first time, began a 
general attack. On the night succeeding the confer- 
ence, they approached in great multitudes, under 
cover of the darkness, and completely surrounded it ; 
many of them crawling beneath the banks of the 
two rivers, which ran close to the rampart, and, with 
incredible perseverance, digging, with their knives, 
holes in which they were completely sheltered from 
the fire of the fort. On one side, the whole bank 
was lined with these burrows, from each of which 
a bullet or an arrow was shot out whenever a sol- 
dier chanced to expose his head. At daybreak, a 
general fire was opened from every side, and contin- 
ued without intermission until night, and through 
several succeeding days. Meanwhile, the women and 
children were pent up in the crowded barracks, terror- 
stricken at the horrible din of the assailants, and 
watching the fire-arrows as they came sailing over 
the parapet, and lodging against the roofs and sides 
of the buildings. In every instance, the fire they 
kindled was extinguished. One of the garrison was 
killed, and seven wounded. Among the latter was 
Captain Ecuyer, wiio, freely exposing himself, re- 
ceived an arrow in the leg. At length, an event 
hereafter to be described put an end to the attack, 
and drew off the assailants from the neighborhood 
of the fort, to the unspeakable relief of the har- 
assed soldiers, exhausted as they were by several 
days of unintermitted vigilance. 1 

1 Extract from a MS. Letter — without further Opposition than Scat- 
Colonel Bouquet to Sir J. Amherst. tered Shots along the Road. 

"Fort Pitt, 11th Aug. 1763. "The Delawares, Shawnese, Wi- 

" Sir : andots, & Mingoes had closely Beset, 

" We Arrived here Yesterday, and Attacked this Fort from the 27th 



Chap. XVIII] 



ATTACK ON FORT PITT. 



343 



July, to the First Instant, when they 
Quitted it to March against us. 

" The Boldness of those Savages 
is hardly Credible; they had taken 
Post under the Banks of Both Riv- 
ers, Close to the Fort, where Digging 
Holes, they kept an Incessant Fire, 
and threw Fire Arrows : They are 
good Marksmen, and though our 
People were under Cover, they Killed 
one, & Wounded seven. — Captain 
Ecuyer is Wounded in the Leg by 
an Arrow. — I Would not Do Justice 
to that Officer, should I omit to In- 
form Your Excellency, that, without 



Engineer, or any other Artificers 
than a few Ship Wrights, he has 
Raised a Parapet of Logs round the 
Fort, above the Old One, which hav- 
ing not been Finished, was too Low, 
and Enfiladed; He has Traised the 
Whole ; Palisadoed the Inside of the 
Aria, Constructed a Fire Engine ; 
and in short, has taken all Precau- 
tions, which Art and Judgement 
could suggest for the Preservation 
of this Post, open before on the three 
sides, which had suffered by the 
Floods." 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE WAR ON THE BORDERS. 

Along the western frontiers of Pennsylvania, Mary- 
land, and Virginia, terror reigned supreme. The In- 
dian scalping-parties were ranging every where, lay- 
ing waste the settlements, destroying the harvests, 
and butchering men, women, and children, with ruth- 
less fury. Many hundreds of wretched fugitives 
flocked for refuge to Carlisle and the other towns 
of the border, bringing tales of inconceivable horror. 
Strong parties of armed men, who went out to rec- 
onnoitre the country, found every habitation reduced 
to cinders, and the half-burned bodies of the inmates 
lying among the smouldering ruins; while here and 
there was seen some miserable wretch, scalped and 
tomahawked, but still alive and conscious. One 
writing from the midst of these scenes declares that, 
in his opinion, a thousand families were driven from 
their homes ; that, on both sides of the Susquehanna, 
the woods were filled with fugitives, without shelter 
and without food ; and that, unless the havoc were 
speedily checked, the western part of Pennsylvania 
would be totally deserted, and Lancaster become the 
frontier town. 1 

While these scenes were enacted on the borders 



1 Penn. Gaz. Nos. 1805-1809. 



Chap. XIX.] FEEBLE RESOURCES OE THE ENGLISH. 



345 



of Pennsylvania and the more southern provinces, 
the settlers in the valley of the Mohawk, and even 
along the Hudson, were menaced with destruction. 
Had not the Six Nations been kept tranquil by the 
strenuous exertions of Sir William Johnson, results 
must have ensued too disastrous to contemplate. 
The Senecas and a few of the Cayugas were the 
only members of the confederacy who took part in 
the war. Venango, as we have seen, was destroyed 
by a party of Senecas, who soon after made a feeble 
attack upon Niagara. They blockaded it, for a few 
days, with no other effect than that of confining the 
garrison within the walls, and, soon despairing of 
success, abandoned the attempt. 

In the mean time, tidings of disaster on disaster 
came in from the westward. The siege of Detroit, 
and the capture of post after post, followed each 
other in quick succession, until it became known 
that nine forts had fallen into the hands of the 
enemy; and Sir Jeffrey Amherst was forced to the 
reluctant conclusion that the tribes had risen in a 
general insurrection. The regions lately won from 
the French, with so much blood and treasure, were 
suddenly snatched from the hands of the conquerors; 
and this, too, at a time when, from the want of 
troops, it was extremely difficult to retrieve the loss. 
The few regiments lately arrived from the West In- 
dies were so reduced that most of them numbered 
less than a hundred feeble and sickly men. By 
combining these fragments, and collecting from the 
less important garrisons, and even from the hospitals, 
every soldier capable of bearing a musket, a small 
force was with difficulty brought together. All that 
could immediately be done was to strengthen the posts 
44 



346 



THE WAR ON THE BORDERS. 



[Chap. XIX, 



which still held out, reserving more active operations 
for the future. A reenforcement was accordingly 
thrown into Niagara, and a detachment, under Cap- 
tain Dalzell, sent up to Detroit. The unfortunate 
issue of this expedition, the sally in the night 
against the camp of Pontiac, the surprise and de- 
feat of the English, and the death of Dalzell, have 
been already described. 

While these movements were made in the direction 
of Detroit, it was equally necessary to send troops 
to Fort Pitt, as that post, though its commander 
had assured the Indians to the contrary, was but ill 
supplied with provision. With the first news of 
hostilities in that quarter, orders were therefore sent 
to Colonel Bouquet, who commanded at Philadel- 
phia, to assemble as large a force as possible, and 
cross the Alleghanies with a convoy of provision 
and ammunition. With every effort, no more than 
five hundred men could be collected for this service. 
They consisted chiefly of Highlanders of the 42d 
Eegiment, wdiich had suffered less than most of the 
other corps, from West Indian exposure. Having 
sent agents to the frontier to collect horses, wagons, 
and supplies, Bouquet soon after followed with the 
troops, and reached Carlisle about the first of July. 
He found the whole country in a panic. Every 
building in the fort, every house, barn, and hovel in 
the little town, was crowded with the families of 
settlers, driven from their homes by the terror of 
the Indian tomahawk. None of the enemy, how- 
ever, had yet appeared in the neighborhood, and 
the people flattered themselves that their ravages 
would be confined to the other side of the moun- 
tains. Whoever ventured to predict the contrary 



Chap. XIX.] 



ALARM AT CARLISLE. 



347 



drew upon himself the indignation of the whole 
community. 

On Sunday, the third of July, an incident occurred 
which redoubled the alarm. A soldier, riding express 
from Fort Pitt, galloped into the town, and alighted 
to water his horse at the well in the centre of the 
place. A crowd of countrymen were instantly about 
hhn, eager to hear the news. " Presqu'Isle, Le Bceuf, 
and Venango are taken, and the Indians will be here 
soon." Such was the substance of the man's reply, 
as, remounting in haste, he rode on to make his re- 
port at the camp of Bouquet. 1 All was now con- 
sternation and excitement. Messengers hastened out 
to spread the tidings, and every road and path- 
way leading into Carlisle was beset with the flying 
settlers, flocking thither for refuge. Soon rumors 
were heard that the Indians were come. Some of 
the fugitives had seen the smoke of burning houses 
rising from the valleys, and these reports were fearful- 
ly confirmed by the appearance of miserable wretches, 
who, half frantic with grief and dismay, had fled 
from the sight of blazing dwellings and slaughtered 
families. A party of the inhabitants armed them- 
selves and went out, to warn the living and bury the 
dead. Reaching Shearman's Valley, they found fields 
laid waste, stacked wheat on fire, and the houses yet 
in flames, and they grew sick with horror, at seeing a 
group of hogs tearing and devouring the bodies of the 
dead. 2 As they advanced up the valley, every thing 
betokened the recent presence of the enemy, while col- 
umns of smoke, rising among the surrounding moun- 
tains, showed how general was the work of destruction. 



1 Penn. Hist. Coll. 267. 2 p en n. Gaz. 1804, 



348 



THE WAR ON THE BORDERS. 



[Chap. XIX. 



On the previous day, six men, assembled for reap- 
ing the harvest, had been seated at dinner at the 
house of Campbell, a settler on the Juniata. Four 
or five Indians suddenly burst the door, fired among 
them, and then beat down the survivors with the 
buts of their rifles. One young man leaped from 
his seat, snatched a gun which stood in a corner, 
discharged it into the breast of the warrior who w r as 
rushing upon him, and, leaping through an open 
window, made his escape. He fled through the forest 
to a settlement at some distance, where he related his 
story. Upon this, twelve young men volunteered to 
cross the mountain, and warn the inhabitants of the 
neighboring Tuscarora valley. On entering it, they 
found that the enemy had been there before them. 
Some of the houses were on fire, while others were 
still standing, with no tenants but the dead. Under 
the shed of a farmer, the Indians had been feasting 
on the flesh of the cattle they had killed, and the 
meat had not yet grown cold. Pursuing their course, 
the white men found the spot where several detached 
parties of the enemy had united almost immediately 
before, and they boldly resolved to follow, in order 
to ascertain what direction the marauders had taken. 
The trail led them up a deep and woody pass of 
the Tuscarora. Here the yell of the war-whoop and 
the din of fire-arms suddenly greeted them, and five 
of their number were shot down. Thirty warriors 
rose from their ambuscade, and rushed upon them. 
They gave one discharge, scattered, and ran for their 
lives. One of them, a boy named Charles Eliot, as 
he fled, plunging through the thickets, heard an In- 
dian tearing the boughs behind him, in furious pur- 
suit. He seized his powder-horn, poured the contents 



Chap. XIX.] 



THE DYING BORDERER. 



349 



at random clown the muzzle of his gun, threw in a, 
bullet after them, without using the ramrod, and, 
wheeling about, discharged the piece into the breast 
of his pursuer. He saw the Indian shrink back 
and roll over into the bushes. He continued his 
flight; but a moment after, a voice earnestly called 
his name. Turning to the spot, he saw one of his 
comrades stretched helpless upon the ground. This 
man had been mortally wounded at the first fire, but 
had fled a few rods from the scene of blood, before 
his strength gave out. Eliot approached him. " Take 
my gun," said the dying frontiersman. "Whenever 
you see an Indian, kill him with it, and then I shall 
be satisfied." 1 Eliot, with several others of the party, 
escaped, and finally reached Carlisle, where his story 
excited a spirit of uncontrollable wrath and ven- 
geance among the fierce backwoodsmen. Several par- 
ties went out, and one of them, commanded by the 
sheriff of the place, encountered a band of Indians, 
routed them after a sharp fight, and brought in sev- 
eral scalps. 2 

The surrounding country was by this time com- 
pletely abandoned by the settlers, many of whom, not 



1 Robison, Narrative. Robison 
was one of the party, and his brother 
was mortally wounded at the first 
fire. 

2 Extract from a Letter — Carlisle, 
July 13, (Perm. Gaz. No. 1804.) 

"Last Night Colonel Armstrong 
returned. He left the Party, who 
pursued further, and found several 
dead, whom they buried in the best 
manner they could, and are now all 
returned in. — From what appears, 
the Indians are travelling from one 
Place to another, along the Valley, 
burning the Farms, and destroying 
all the People they meet with. — This 
Day gives an Account of six more 



being killed in the Valley, so that, 
since last Sunday Morning to this 
Day, Twelve o'clock, we have a pret- 
ty authentic Account of the Number 
slain, being Twenty-five, and four or 
five wounded. — The Colonel, Mr. 
Wilson, and Mr. Alricks, are now on 
the Parade, endeavouring to raise 
another Party, to go out and succour 
the Sheriff and his Party, consisting 
of Fifty Men, which marched Yester- 
day, and hope they will be able to 
send off immediately Twenty good 
Men. — The People here, I assure 
you, want nothing but a good Leader, 
and a little Encouragement, to make 
a very good Defence." 



DD 



350 



THE WAR ON THE BORDERS. 



[Chap. XIX. 



content with seeking refuge at Carlisle, continued 
their flight to the eastward, and, headed by the cler- 
gyman of that place, pushed on to Lancaster, and 
even to Philadelphia. 1 Carlisle presented a most de- 
plorable spectacle. A multitude of the refugees, unable 
to find shelter in the town, had encamped hi the 
woods or on the adjacent fields, erecting huts of 
branches and bark, and living on such charity as 
the slender means of the townspeople could supply. 
Passing among them, one would have witnessed every 
form of human misery. In these wretched encamp- 
ments were men, women, and children, bereft at one 
stroke of friends, of home, and the means of sup- 
porting life. Some stood aghast and bewildered at 
the sudden and fatal blow ; others were sunk in the 
apathy of despair; others were weeping and moan- 
ing with irrepressible anguish. With not a few, the 
craven passion of fear drowned all other emotion, 
and day and night they were haunted with visions 
of the bloody knife and the reeking scalp; while in 
others, every faculty was absorbed by the burning 
thirst for vengeance, and mortal hatred against the 
whole Indian race. 2 



1 Extract from a Letter — Carlisle, 
July 5, (Haz. Pa. Reg. IV. 390.) 

" Nothing could exceed the terror 
which prevailed from house to house, 
from town to town. The road was 
near covered with women and chil- 
dren, flying to Lancaster and Phila- 
delphia. The R e v. , p astor 

of the Episcopal Church, went at the 
head of his congregation, to protect 
and encourage them on the way. A 
few retired to the Breast works for 
safety. The alarm once given could 
not be appeased. We have done all 
that men can do to prevent disorder. 
All our hopes are turned upon Bou- 
quet." 



2 Extract from a Letter — Carlisle, 
July 12, (Perm. Gaz. No. 1804.) 

"I embrace this first Leisure, since 
Yesterday Morning, to transmit you 
a brief Account of our present State 
of Affairs here, which indeed is very 
distressing; every Day, almost, af- 
fording some fresh Object to awaken 
the Compassion, alarm the Fears, or 
kindle into Resentment and Ven- 
geance every sensible Breast, while 
flying Families, obliged to abandon 
House and Possession, to save then 
Lives by an hasty Escape ; mourn- 
ing Widows, bewailing their Hus- 
bands surprised and massacred by 
savage Rage ; tender Parents, la- 



Chap. XIX.] 



SCENES AT CARLISLE. 



351 



meriting the Fruits of their own 
Bodies, cropt in the very Bloom of 
Life by a barbarous Hand ; with Re- 
lations and Acquaintances, pouring 
out Sorrow for murdered Neighbours 
and Friends, present a varied Scene 
of mingled Distress. 



" To-day a British Vengeance be- 
gins to rise in the Breasts of our 
Men. — One of them that fell from 
among the 12, as he was just expir- 
ing, said to one of his Fellows, Here, 
take my Gun, and kill the first In- 
dian you see, and all shall be well." 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN. 

The miserable multitude were soon threatened with 
famine, and gathered in crowds around the tents of 
Bouquet, soliciting relief, which he was too humane 
to refuse. In the mean time, the march of the little 
army had been delayed beyond expectation, since, from 
the terror and flight of the inhabitants, it was almost 
impossible to collect upon the frontier the necessary 
horses, wagons, and provision. 1 Recourse was had to 
the settlements farther eastward; and, after the lapse 
of eighteen days, every obstacle being now overcome, 
Bouquet broke up his camp, and set forth on his du- 
bious enterprise. As the troops, with their heavy con- 
voy, defiled through the street of Carlisle, the people 
crowded to look on, not with the idle curiosity of 
rustics, gazing on an unwonted military spectacle, 
but with the anxious hearts of men whose all was at 
stake on the issue of the expedition. The haggard 
looks and thin frames of these worn-out veterans 
filled them with blackest forebodings ; nor were these 
diminished when they beheld sixty invalid soldiers, 
who, unable to walk, were borne forward in wagons 
to furnish a feeble reenforcement to the small garri- 
sons along the route. 2 The desponding spectators 



i MS. Letter — Bouquet to Am- 2 Hutchins, Account of Bouquet's 
herst, July 3. expedition. Introduction, VI. 



Chap. XX.] 



DEPARTURE OE BOUQUET. 



353 



watched the last gleam of the bayonets, as the rear- 
guard entered the woods, and then returned to their 
hovels, prepared for tidings of defeat, and ready, on 
the first news of the disaster, to desert the country 
and fly beyond the Susquehanna. 

In truth, the adventure would have seemed des- 
perate to any but the manliest heart. In front lay 
a vast wilderness, terrible alike from its own stern 
features and the ferocious enemy who haunted its 
recesses. Among these forests lay the bones of Brad- 
dock and the hundreds who fell with him. The 
number of the slain on that bloody day exceeded 
the whole force of Bouquet, while the strength of 
the assailants was far inferior to that of the swarms 
w T ho now infested the woods. Except a few rangers, 
whom Bouquet had gathered on the frontier, the 
troops were utterly unused to the forest service; a 
service, the terrors, hardships, and vicissitudes of 
which seldom find a parallel in the warfare of civil- 
ized nations. Fully appreciating the courage of 
the frontiersmen, their excellence as marksmen, and 
their knowledge of the woods, Bouquet had endeav- 
ored to engage a body of them to accompany the 
expedition; but they preferred to remain for the im- 
mediate defence of their families and friends, rather 
than embark in a distant and doubtful adventure. 
The results involved in the enterprise were altogether 
disproportioned to the small numbers engaged in it; 
and it was happy, not only for the troops, but also 
for the colonies, that the officer in command pre- 
sented, in every respect, a marked contrast to his 
perverse and wrong-headed predecessor Braddock. 

Henry Bouquet was by birth a Swiss, of the can- 
ton of Berne. His military life began while he was 
45 dd* 



354 



THE BATTLE OF BUSHY EOT. 



[Chap. XX. 



yet a boy. He held a commission in the army of 
the King of Sardinia ; but when the war between 
France and England broke out, in 1755, he was en- 
gaged in the service of the States of Holland. At 
this time, a plan was formed, under the auspices of 
the Duke of Cumberland, to organize a corps to serve 
in the provinces, and to be called the Royal Ameri- 
cans. The commissions were to be given to foreigners, 
as well as to Englishmen and provincials, while the 
ranks were to be tilled chiefly from the German 
emigrants in Pennsylvania and other provinces. 1 Bou- 
quet was induced to accept the commission of lieu- 
tenant colonel in this regiment ; and his services soon 
proved of the utmost value, since his military talents 
and personal character were alike fitted to command 
respect and confidence. His person was fine, his 
bearing composed and dignified. In the provinces, 
and especially in Pennsylvania, he was held in the 



i "The next object of the imme- 
diate attention of Parliament in this 
session was the raising of a new regi- 
ment of foot in North America ; for 
which purpose, the sum of £ 81,178 
16 s. was voted. This regiment, 
which was to consist of four bat- 
talions of 1000 men each, was in- 
tended to be raised chiefly out of the 
Germans and Swiss, who, for many 
years past, had annually transporte'd 
themselves in great numbers to Brit- 
ish plantations in America, where 
waste lands had been assigned them 
upon the frontiers of the provinces ; 
but, very injudiciously, no care had 
been taken to intermix them with the 
English inhabitants of the place, so 
that very few of them, even of those 
who have been born there, have yet 
learned to speak or understand the 
English tongue. However, as they 
were all zealous Protestants, and in 
general strong, hardy men, accus- 
tomed to the climate, it was judged 



that a regiment of good and faithful 
soldiers might be raised out of them, 
particularly proper to oppose the 
French ; but to this end it was neces- 
sary to appoint some officers, espe- 
cially subalterns, who understood 
military discipline and could speak the 
German language ; and as a sufficient 
number of such could not be found 
among the English officers, it was 
necessary to bring over and grant 
commissions to several German and 
Swiss officers and engineers. But 
as this step, by the Act of Settle- 
ment, could not be taken without the 
authority of Parliament, an act was 
now passed for enabling his majesty 
to grant commissions to a certain 
number of foreign Protestants, who 
had served abroad as officers or en- 
gineers, to act and rank as officers or 
engineers in America only." — Smol- 
let, England, III. 475. 

The Roval American Regiment is 
now the 60th Rifles. 



Chap. XX.] 



BOUQUET — HIS CHARACTER. 



355 



highest esteem. He was a master of the English 
language, writing in a style of great purity; and 
though enthusiastic in the study of his profession, 
his tastes led him to frequent the society of men 
of science and literature. As a soldier, he was 
distinguished by great activity, an unshaken cour- 
age, and an unfailing fertility of resource; while 
to these qualities he added a power of adaptation 
which had been lamentably wanting in some of the 
English officers who preceded him. 1 He had acquired 
a practical knowledge of Indian warfare, and it is 
said that, in the course of the hazardous partisan 
service in which he was often engaged, when it was 
necessary to penetrate dark defiles and narrow passes, 
he was sometimes known to advance before his 
men, armed with a rifle, and acting the part of a 
scout. 

The route of the army lay along the beautiful 
Cumberland Valley. Passing here and there a few 
scattered cabins, deserted or burnt to the ground, 
they reached the hamlet of Shippensburg, some- 
what more than twenty miles from their point of 
departure. Here, as at Carlisle, was congregated a 
starving multitude, who had fled from the knife and 
the tomahawk. 2 

By the last advices from the westward, it appeared 
that Fort Ligonier, situated beyond the Alleghanies, 
was in imminent danger of falling into the enemy's 

1 Relation Historique de l'Expe- distressed Back Inhabitants, viz. 
dition contre les Indiens de l'Ohio. Men, 301 ; Women, 345 ; Children, 
Traduit de l'Anglois. Preface du 738; Many of whom were obliged 
Traducteur. to lie in Barns, Stables, Cellars, and 

2 " Our Accounts from the west- under old leaky Sheds, the Dwelling- 
ward are as follows, viz. : — houses being all crowded." — Penn. 

" On the 25th of July there were Gaz. No. 1806. 
in Shippensburgh 1384 of our poor 



356 



THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN. 



[Chap. XX. 



hands before the army could come up ; for its de- 
fences were slight, its garrison was feeble, and the 
Indians had assailed it with repeated attacks. The 
magazine which the place contained made it of such 
importance that Bouquet resolved at all hazards to 
send a party to its relief. Thirty of the best men 
were accordingly chosen, and ordered to push for- 
ward with the utmost speed, by unfrequented routes 
through the forests and over the mountains, carefully 
avoiding the road, which would doubtless, be infested 
by the enemy. The party set out on their critical 
errand, guided by frontier hunters, and observing 
a strict silence. Using every precaution, and ad- 
vancing by forced marches, day after day, they came 
in sight of the fort without being discovered. It 
was beset by Indians, and, as the party made for 
the gate, they were seen and fired upon; but they 
threw themselves into the place without the loss of 
a man, and Ligonier was for the time secure. 1 

In the mean time, the army, advancing with 
slower progress, entered a country where as yet 
scarcely an English settler had built his cabin. 
Reaching Fort Loudon, on the declivities of Cove 
Mountain, they ascended the wood-encumbered defiles 
beyond. Far on their right stretched the green 
ridges of the Tuscarora, while, in front, mountain 
beyond mountain rose high ' against the horizon. 
Climbing heights and descending into valleys, pass- 
ing the two solitary posts of Littleton and the Ju- 
niata, both abandoned by their garrisons, they came 
in sight of Fort Bedford, hemmed in by encircling 
mountains. Their arrival gave infinite relief to the 

1 Hutchins, Account of Bouquet's Expedition. Introduction, VI. 



Chap. XX.] 



MARCH OF BOUQUET. 



357 



garrison, who had long been beleaguered and endan- 
gered by a swarm of Indians, while many of the 
settlers in the neighborhood had been killed, and 
the rest driven for refuge into the fort. Captain 
Onrry, the commanding officer, reported that, for sev- 
eral weeks, nothing had been heard from the west- 
ward, every messenger having been killed, and the 
communication completely cut off. By the last in- 
telligence, Fort Pitt had been surrounded by In- 
dians, and daily threatened with a general attack. 

Having remained encamped, for three days, on the 
fields near the fort, Bouquet resumed his march on 
the twenty-eighth of July, and soon passed beyond 
the farthest verge of civilized habitation. The whole 
country lay buried in foliage. Except the rocks 
which crowned the mountains, and the streams 
which rippled along the valleys, the unbroken forest, 
like a vast garment, invested the whole. The road 
was channelled through its depths, while, on each 
side, the brown trunks and tangled undergrowth 
formed a wall so dense as almost to bar the sight. 
Through a country thus formed by nature for am- 
buscades, not a step was free from danger, and no 
precaution was neglected to guard against surprise. 
In advance of the marching column moved the pro- 
vincial rangers, closely followed by the pioneers. 
The wagons and cattle were in the centre, guarded 
in front, flank, and rear by the regulars, while a 
rearguard of rangers closed the line of march. 
Keen-eyed riflemen of the frontier, acting as scouts, 
scoured the woods far in front and on either flank, 
so that surprise was impossible. In this order the 
little army toiled heavily on, over a road beset with 
ail the obstructions of the forest, until the main 



358 



THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN. 



[Chap. XX. 



riclge of the Alleghanies, like a mighty wall of 
green, rose up before them, and they began their 
zigzag progress up the woody heights, amid the 
sweltering heats of July. The tongues of the pant- 
ing oxen hung lolling from their jaws, while the 
pine-trees, scorching in the hot sun, diffused their 
resinous odors through the sultry air. At length, 
from the windy summit the Highland soldiers could 
gaze around upon a boundless panorama of forest- 
covered mountains, wild as their own native hills. 
Descending from the Alleghanies, they entered upon 
a country less rugged and formidable in itself, but 
beset with constantly increasing dangers. On the 
second of August, they reached Fort Ligonier, about 
fifty miles from Bedford, and a hundred and fifty 
from Carlisle. The Indians who were about the 
place vanished at their approach ; but the garrison 
could furnish no intelligence of the motions and de- 
signs of the enemy, having been completely block- 
aded for weeks. In this uncertainty, Bouquet re- 
solved to leave behind the oxen and wagons, which 
formed the most cumbrous part of the convoy, since 
this would enable him to advance with greater celer- 
ity, and oppose a better resistance in case of attack. 
Thus relieved, the army resumed its march on the 
fourth, taking with them three hundred and fifty 
pack horses and a few cattle, and at nightfall en- 
camped at no great distance from Ligonier. Within 
less than a day's march in advance lay the danger- 
ous defiles of Turtle Creek, a stream flowing at the 
bottom of a deep hollow, flanked by steep decliv- 
ities, along the foot of which the road at that time 
ran for some distance. Fearing that the enemy 
would lay an ambuscade at' this place, Bouquet 



Chap. XX] 



UNEXPECTED ATTACK. 



359 



resolved to march on the following day as far as a 
small stream called Bushy Run, to rest here until 
night, and then, by a forced march, to cross Turtle 
Creek under cover of the darkness. 

On the morning of the fifth, the tents were struck 
at an early hour, and the troops began their march 
through a country broken with hills and deep hol- 
lows, every where covered with the tall, dense forest, 
which spread for countless leagues around. By one 
o'clock, they had advanced seventeen miles, and the 
guides assured them that they were within half a 
mile of Bushy Run, their proposed resting-place. 
The tired soldiers were pressing forward with re- 
newed alacrity, when suddenly the report of rifles 
from the front sent a thrill along the ranks; and, as 
they listened, the firing thickened into a fierce, sharp 
rattle, while shouts and whoops, deadened by the in- 
tervening forest, showed that the advanced guard 
was hotly engaged. The two foremost companies 
were at once ordered forward to support it ; but 
far from abating, the fire grew so rapid and furious 
as to argue the presence of an enemy at once nu- 
merous and resolute. At this, the convoy was halted, 
the troops formed into line, and a general charge 
ordered. Bearing down through the forest with 
fixed bayonets, they drove the yelping assailants be- 
fore them, and swept the ground clear. But at the 
very moment of success, a fresh burst of whoops 
and firing was heard from either flank, while a con- 
fused noise from the rear showed that the convoy 
was attacked. It was necessary instantly to fall 
back for its support. Driving off the assailants, the 
troops formed in a circle around the crowded and 
terrified horses. Though they were new to the 



360 



THE BATTLE OE BUSHY BUN. 



[Chap. XX. 



work, and though the numbers and movements of 
the enemy, whose yelling resounded on every side, 
were concealed by the thick forest, yet no man 
lost his composure; and all displayed a steadiness 
which nothing but implicit confidence in their com- 
mander could have inspired. And now ensued a 
combat of a nature most harassing and discouraging. 
Again and again, now on this side and now on 
that, a crowd of Indians rushed up, pouring in 
a heavy fire, and striving, with furious outcries, to 
break into the circle. A well-directed volley met 
them, followed by a steady charge of the bayonet. 
They never waited an instant to receive the attack, 
but, leaping backwards from tree to tree, soon van- 
ished from sight, only to renew their attack with 
unabated ferocity in another quarter. Such was 
their activity that very few of them were hurt, 
while the English, less expert in bush fighting, suf- 
fered severely. Thus the fight went on, without in- 
termission, for seven hours, until the forest grew 
dark with approaching night. Upon this, the In- 
dians gradually slackened their fire, and the ex- 
hausted soldiers found time to rest. 

It was impossible to change their ground in the 
enemy's presence, and the troops were obliged to 
encamp upon the hill where the combat had taken 
place, though not a drop of water was to be found 
there. Fearing a night attack, Bouquet stationed 
numerous sentinels and outposts to guard against it, 
while the men lay down upon their arms, preserving 
the order they had maintained during the fight. 
Having completed the necessary arrangements, Bou- 
quet, doubtful of surviving the battle of the morrow, 
wrote to Sir Jeffrey Amherst, in a few clear, concise 



Chap. XX.] DISTRESS AND DANGER OF THE TROOPS. 361 

words, an account of the day's events. His letter 
concludes as follows: "Whatever our fate may be, I 
thought it necessary to give your excellency this 
early information, that you may, at all events, take 
such measures as you will think proper with the 
provinces, for their own safety, and the effectual 
relief of Fort Pitt; as, in case of another engage- 
ment, I fear insurmountable difficulties in protecting 
and transporting our provisions, being already so 
much weakened by the losses of this day, in men 
and horses, besides the additional necessity of 
carrying the wounded, whose situation is truly 
deplorable." 

The condition of these unhappy men might well 
awaken sympathy. About sixty soldiers, besides sev- 
eral officers, had been killed or disabled. A space 
in the centre of the camp was prepared for the 
reception of the wounded, and surrounded by a wall 
of flour-bags from the convoy, affording some pro- 
tection against the bullets which flew from all 
sides during the fight. Here they lay upon the 
ground, enduring agonies of thirst, and waiting, pas- 
sive and helpless, the issue of the battle. Deprived 
of the animating thought that their lives and safety 
depended on their own exertions ; surrounded by a 
wilderness, and by scenes to the horror of which 
no degree of familiarity could render the imagina- 
tion callous, they must have endured mental suffer- 
ings, compared to which the pain of their wounds 
was slight. In the probable event of defeat, a fate 
inexpressibly horrible awaited them ; while even vic- 
tory would by no means insure their safety, since 
any great increase in their numbers would render it 
impossible for their comrades to transport them. 

46 . EE 



362 



THE BATTLE OF BUSHY EUK 



[Chap. XX. 



Nor was the condition of those who had hitherto 
escaped an enviable one. Though they were about 
equal in numbers to their assailants, yet the dex- 
terity and alertness of the Indians, joined to the 
nature of the country, gave all the advantages of a 
greatly superior force. The enemy were, moreover, 
exulting in the fullest confidence of success ; for it 
was hi these very forests that, eight years before, 
they had well nigh destroyed twice their number of 
the best British troops. Throughout the earlier part 
of the night, they kept up a dropping fire upon the 
camp, while, at short intervals, a wild whoop from 
the thick surrounding gloom told with what fierce 
eagerness they waited to glut their vengeance on the 
morrow. The camp remained in darkness, for it 
would have been highly dangerous to build fires 
within its precincts, which would have served to 
direct the aim of the lurking marksmen. Sur- 
rounded by such terrors, the men snatched a 
disturbed and broken sleep, recruiting their ex- 
hausted strength for the renewed struggle of the 
morning. 

With the earliest dawn of day, and while the 
damp, cool forest was still involved in twilight, 
there rose around the camp a general burst of 
those horrible cries which form the ordinary prel- 
ude of an Indian battle. Instantly, from every side 
at once, the enemy opened their fire, approaching 
under cover of the trees and bushes, and levelling 
with a close and deadly aim. Often, as on the pre- 
vious day, they would rush up with furious impet- 
uosity, striving to break into the ring of troops. 
They were repulsed at every point; but the Eng- 
lish, though constantly victorious, were beset with 



Chap. XX.] CONFLICT OF THE SECOND DAY. 363 

undiminished perils, while the violence of the enemy 
seemed every moment on the increase. True to their 
favorite tactics, they would never stand their ground 
when attacked, but vanish at the first gleam of the 
levelled bayonet, only to appear again the moment 
the danger was past. The troops, fatigued by the 
long march and equally long battle of the previous 
day, were maddened by the torments of thirst, more 
intolerable, says their commander, than the fire of 
the enemy. They were fully conscious of the peril 
in which they stood, of wasting away by slow de- 
grees beneath the shot of assailants at once so 
daring, so cautious, and so active, and upon whom 
it was impossible to inflict any decisive injury. The 
Indians saw their distress, and pressed them closer 
and closer, redoubling their yells and howlings, 
while some of them, sheltered behind trees, as- 
sailed the troops, in bad English, with abuse and 
derision. 

Meanwhile the interior of the camp was a scene 
of confusion. The horses, secured in a crowd near 
the intrenchment which covered the wounded, were 
often struck by the bullets, and wrought to the 
height of terror by the mingled din of whoops, 
shrieks, and firing. They would break away by 
half scores at a time, burst through the ring of 
troops and the outer circle of assailants, and scour 
madly up and down the hill sides ; while many of 
the drivers, overcome by the terrors of a scene in 
which they could bear no active part, hid them- 
selves among the bushes, and could neither hear 
nor obey orders. 

It was now about ten o'clock. Oppressed with 
heat, fatigue, and thirst, the distressed troops still 



364 



THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN. 



[Chap. XX. 



maintained a weary and wavering defence, encircling 
the convoy in a yet unbroken ring. They were fast 
falling in their ranks, and the strength and spirits 
of the survivors had begun to flag. If the fortunes 
of the day were to be retrieved, the effort must be 
made at once; and happily the mind of the com- 
mander was equal to the emergency. In the midst 
of the confusion he conceived a stratagem alike 
novel and masterly. Could the Indians be brought 
together in a body, and made to stand their ground 
when attacked, there could be little doubt of the 
result; and to effect this object, Bouquet determined 
to increase their confidence, which had already 
mounted to an audacious pitch. Two companies of 
infantry, forming a part of the ring which had been 
exposed to the hottest fire, were ordered to fall back 
into the interior of the camp, while the troops on 
either hand joined their files across the vacant 
space, as if to cover the retreat of their comrades. 
These orders, given at a favorable moment, were 
executed with great promptness. The thin line of 
troops who took possession of the deserted part 
of the circle, were, from their small numbers, 
brought closer in towards the centre. The Indians 
mistook these movements for a retreat. Confident 
that their time was come, they leaped up on all 
sides, from behind the trees and bushes, and, with 
infernal screeches, rushed headlong towards the spot, 
pouring in a most heavy and galling fire. The 
shock was too violent to be long endured. The men 
struggled to maintain their posts, but the Indians 
seemed on the point of breaking into the heart of 
the camp, when the aspect of affairs was suddenly 
reversed. The two companies, who had apparently 



Chap. XX.] 



SUCCESSFUL STRATAGEM. 



365 



abandoned their position, were in fact destined to 
begin the attack ; and they now sallied out from 
the circle at a point where a depression in the 
ground, joined to the thick growth of trees, con- 
cealed them from the eyes of the Indians. Making 
a short detour through the woods, they came round 
upon the flank of the furious assailants, and dis- 
charged a deadly volley into their very midst. Num- 
bers were seen to fall; yet though completely sur- 
prised, and utterly at a loss to understand the 
nature of the attack, the Indians faced about with 
the greatest intrepidity, and boldly returned the fire. 
But the Highlanders, with yells as wild as their 
own, fell on them with the bayonet. The shock 
was irresistible, and they fled before the charging 
ranks in a tumultuous throng. Orders had been 
given to two other companies, occupying a contig- 
uous part of the circle, to support the attack when- 
ever a favorable moment should occur; and they had 
therefore advanced a little from their position, and 
lay close crouched in ambush. The fugitive multi- 
tude, pressed by the Highland bayonets, passed 
directly across their front, upon which they rose 
and poured among them a second volley, no less 
destructive than the former. This completed the 
rout. The four companies, uniting, drove the flying 
savages through the woods, giving them no time to 
rally or reload their empty rifles, killing many, and 
scattering the rest in hopeless confusion. 

While this took place at one part of the circle, 
the troops and the savages had still maintained their 
respective positions at the other; but when the lat- 
ter perceived the total rout of their comrades, and 
saw the troops advancing to assail them, they also 

EE* 



366 



THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN. 



[Chap. XX. 



lost heart, and fled. The discordant outcries which 
had so long deafened the ears of the English soon 
ceased altogether, and not a living Indian remained 
near the spot. About sixty corpses lay scattered 
over the ground. Among them were found those of 
several prominent chiefs, while the blood which 
stained the leaves of the bushes showed that num- 
bers had fled severely wounded from the field. The 
soldiers took but one prisoner, whom they shot to 
death like a captive wolf. The loss of the English 
in the two battles surpassed that of the enemy, 
amounting to eight officers and one hundred and 
fifteen men. 1 

Having been for some time detained by the 
necessity of making litters for the wounded, and 



1 MS. Letters — Bouquet to Am- 
herst, Aug. 5, 6. Penn. Gaz. 1809- 
1810. Gent. Mag. XXXIII. 487. 
London Mag. for 1763, 545. Hutch- 
ins, Account of Bouquet's Expedi- 
tion. Annual Register for 1763, 28. 
Mante, 493. 

The accounts of this action, pub- 
lished in the journals of the day, ex- 
cited much attention, from the wild 
and novel character of this species 
of warfare. A well-written descrip- 
tion of the battle, together with a 
journal of Bouquet's expedition of 
the succeeding year, was published 
in a thin quarto, with illustrations 
from the pencil of West. The 
writer, Thomas Hutchins, became 
afterwards known as the author of 
several geographical works relating 
to the western territories of Amer- 
ica. A French translation of his 
narrative was published at Amster- 
dam in 1769. 

Extract from a Letter — Fort Pitt, 
August 12, (Penn. Gaz. No. 1810.) 

"We formed a Circle round our 
Convoy and Wounded ; upon which 
(he Savages collected themselves, 
and continued whooping and popping 



at us all the Evening. Next Morn- 
ing, having mustered all their Force, 
they began the War-whoop, attacking 
us in Front, when the Colonel feigned 
a Retreat, which encouraged the In- 
dians to an eager Pursuit, while the 
Light Infantry and Grenadiers rushed 
out on their Right and Left Flanks, 
attacking them where they little ex- 
pected it ; by which Means a great 
Number of them were killed ; and 
among the rest, Keelyuskung, a Del- 
aware Chief, who the Night before, 
and that Morning, had been Black- 
guarding us in English: We lost 
one Man in the Rear, on our March 
the Day after. 

" In other Letters from Fort Pitt, it 
is mentioned that, to a Man, they 
were resolved to defend the Garrison 
(if the Troops had not arrived) as 
long as any Ammunition, and Provis- 
ion to support them, were left ; and 
that then they would have fought 
their Way through, or died in the 
Attempt, rather than have been made 
Prisoners by such perfidious, cruel, 
and Blood-thirsty Hell-hounds." 

See Appendix, D. 



Chap. XX.] BOUQUET REACHES FORT PITT. 367 

destroying the stores which the flight of most of 
the horses made it impossible to transport, the army 
moved on, in the afternoon, to Bushy Run. Here 
they had scarcely formed their camp, when they were 
again fired upon by a body of Indians, who, however, 
were soon repulsed. On the next day, they resumed 
their progress towards Fort Pitt, distant about twenty- 
five miles, and though frequently annoyed on the 
march by petty attacks, they reached their destination, 
on the tenth, without serious loss. It was a joyful 
moment both to the troops and to the garrison. 
The latter, it will be remembered, were left sur- 
rounded and hotly pressed by the Indians, who had 
beleaguered the place from the twenty-eighth of July 
to the first of August, when, hearing of Bouquet's 
approach, they had abandoned the siege, and marched 
to attack him. From this time, the garrison had seen 
nothing of them until the morning of the tenth, 
when, shortly before the army appeared, they had 
passed the fort in a body, raising the scalp-yell, and 
displaying their disgusting trophies to the view of 
the English. 1 



1 Extract from a Letter — Fort 
Pitt, August 12, (Perm. Gaz. No. 
1810.) 

"As you will probably have the 
Accounts of these Engagements from 
the Gentlemen that were in them, I 
shall say no more than this, that it 
is the general Opinion, the Troops 
behaved with the utmost Intrepidity, 
and the Indians were never known to 
behave so fiercely. You may be sure 
the Sight of the Troops was very 
agreeable to our poor Garrison, being 
penned up in the Fort from the 27th 
of May to the 9th Instant, and the 
Barrack Rooms crammed with Men, 
Women, and Children, tho' provi- 
dentially no other Disorder ensued 



than the Small-pox, — From the 16th 
of June to the 28th of July, we were 
pestered with the Enemy ; sometimes 
with their Flags, demanding Con- 
ferences ; at other Times threaten- 
ing, then soothing, and offering their 
Cordial Advice, for us to evacuate the 
Place ; for that they, the Delawares, 
tho' our dear Friends and Brothers, 
could no longer protect us from the 
Fury of Legions of other Nations, 
that were coming from the Lakes, 
&c, to destroy us. But, finding that 
neither had any Effect on us, they 
mustered their whole Force, in Num- 
ber about 400, and began a most furi- 
ous Fire from all Quarters on the Fort, 
which they continued for four Days, 



368 



THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN. [Chap. XX. 



The battle of Bushy Eun was one of the best con- 
tested actions ever fought between white men and 
Indians. If there were any disparity of numbers, the 
advantage was on the side of the troops, and the 
Indians had displayed throughout a fierceness and 
intrepidity matched only by the steady valor with 
which they were met. In the provinces, the victory 
excited equal joy and admiration, more especially 
among those who knew the incalculable difficulties 
of an Indian campaign. The assembly of Pennsyl- 
vania passed a vote expressing their high sense of 
the merits of Bouquet, and of the important service 
which he had rendered to the province. He soon 
after received the additional honor of the formal 
thanks of the king. 1 

In many an Indian village, the women cut away 
their hair, gashed their limbs with knives, and ut- 
tered their dismal howlings of lamentation for the 
fallen. Yet, though surprised and dispirited, the rage 



and great Part of the Nights, viz., 
from the 28th of. July to the last.— 
Our Commander was wounded by an 
Arrow in the Leg, and no other Per- 
son, of any Note, hurt, tho' the Balls 
were whistling very thick about our 
Ears. Nine Rank and File wound- 
ed, and one Hulings having his Leg 
broke, was the whole of our Loss 
during this hot Firing ; tho' we have 
Reason to think that we killed sev- 
eral of our loving Brethren, notwith- 
standing their Alertness in skulking 
behind the Banks of the Rivers, &c. 
— These Gentry, seeing they could 
not take the Fort, sheered off, and 
we heard no more of them till the 
Account of the above Engagements 
came to hand, when we were con- 
vinced that our good Brothers did us 
this second Act of Friendship. — 
What they intend next, God knows, 



but am afraid they will disperse in 
small Parties, among the Inhabitants, 
if not well defended." 

i Extract from a MS. Letter — Sir 
J. Amherst to Colonel Bouquet. 

" New York, 31st August, 1763. 

" The Disposition you made for 
the Reception of the Indians, the 
Second Day, was indeed very wisely 
Concerted, and as happily Executed ; 
I am pleased with Every part of your 
Conduct on the Occasion, which be- 
ing so well seconded by the Officers 
and Soldiers under your Command, 
Enabled you not only to Protect 
your Large Convoy, but to rout a 
Body of Savages that would have 
been very formidable against any 
Troops, but such as you had wita 
you." 



Chap. XX.] EFFECTS OF THE YICTOEY. 369 

of the Indians was too deep to be quenched, even 
by so signal a reverse, and their outrages upon the 
frontier were resumed with unabated ferocity. Fort 
Pitt, however, was effectually relieved, while the moral 
effect of the victory enabled the frontier settlers to 
encounter the enemy with a spirit which would have 
been wanting, had Bouquet sustained a defeat, 
47 



CHAPTER XXI. 



THE IROQUOIS. — AMBUSCADE OF THE DEVIL'S HOLE. 

While Bouquet was lighting the battle of Bushy 
Run, and Dalzell making his fatal sortie against 
the camp of Pontiac, Sir William Johnson was en- 
gaged in the more pacific, yet more important task 
of securing the friendship and alliance of the Six 
Nations. After several preliminary conferences, he 
sent runners throughout the whole confederacy to in- 
vite deputies of the several tribes to meet him in 
council at Johnson Hall. The request was not de- 
clined. From the banks of the Mohawk, from the 
Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora villages, from the val- 
ley of Onondaga, where, from immemorial time, had 
burned the great council-fire of the confederacy, came 
chiefs and warriors, gathering to the place of meet- 
ing. The Senecas alone, the warlike tenants of the 
Genesee valley, refused to attend, for they were al- 
ready hi arms against the English. Besides the Iro- 
quois, deputies came likewise from the tribes dwelling 
along the St. Lawrence, and within the settled parts 
of Canada. 

The council opened on the seventh of September. 
The whole assembly wore a sour and sullen look; 
but Sir William Johnson, by a dexterous mingling 
of reasoning, threats, and promises, allayed their dis- 
content, and banished the thoughts of war. They 



Chap. XXL] EFFECT OF JOHNSON'S INFLUENCE. 



371 



winced, however, when he informed them that, during 
the next season, an English army must pass through 
their country, on its way to punish the refractory 
tribes of the west. " Your foot is broad and heavy," 
said the speaker from Onondaga ; " take care that you 
do not tread on us." Seeing the improved temper 
of his auditory, Johnson was led to hope for some 
farther advantage than that of mere neutrality. He 
accordingly urged the Iroquois to take up arms 
against the hostile tribes, and concluded his final 
harangue with the following figurative words : "I 
now deliver you a good English axe, which I desire 
you will give to the warriors of all your nations, with 
directions to use it against these covenant-breakers, 
by cutting off the bad links which have sullied the 
chain of friendship." 

These words were confirmed by the presentation 
of a black war-belt of wampum, and the offer of a 
hatchet, which the Iroquois did not refuse to accept. 
That they would take any very active and strenuous 
part in the war, could not be expected; yet their 
bearing arms at all would prove of great advantage, 
by discouraging the hostile Indians who had looked 
upon the Iroquois as friends and abetters. Some 
months after the council, several small parties actu- 
ally took the field, and, being stimulated by the 
prospect of reward, brought in a considerable num- 
ber of scalps and prisoners. 1 

Upon the persuasion of Sir William Johnson, the 
tribes of Canada were induced to send a message to 
the western Indians, exhorting them to bury the 
hatchet, while the Iroquois despatched an embassy of 

i MS. Minutes of Conference with the Six Nations and others, at John- 
son Hall, Sept. 1763. 



372 



THE IROQUOIS. 



[Chap. XXI. 



similar import to the Delawares on the Susquehanna. 
"Cousins the Delawares" — thus ran the message — 
" we have heard that many wild Indians in the west, 
who have tails like bears, have let fall the chain of 
friendship, and taken up the hatchet against our 
brethren the English. We desire you to hold fast 
the chain, and shut your ears against their words." 1 
In spite of the friendly disposition to which the 
Iroquois had been brought, the province of New 
York suffered not a little from the attacks of the 
hostile tribes who ravaged the borders of Ulster, 
Orange, and Albany counties, and threatened to de- 
stroy the upper settlements of the Mohawk. 2 Sir 
William Johnson was the object of their especial 
enmity, and he several times received intimations that 
he was about to be attacked. He armed his tenant- 
ry, surrounded his seat of Johnson Hall with a 
stockade, and garrisoned it with a party of soldiers, 
which Sir Jeffrey Amherst had ordered thither for 
his protection. About this time, a singular incident 
occurred near the town of Goshen. Four or five men 
went out among the hills to shoot partridges, and, 
chancing to raise a large covey, they all fired their 
guns at nearly the same moment. The timorous in- 
habitants, hearing the reports, concluded that they came 



1 MS. Harrisburg Papers. hensions of the Indians : As they 

2 Extract from a MS. Letter — Sir in General Confide much in my Res- 

W. Johnson to Sir J. Amherst. idence, they are hitherto Prevented 

j,-t v tt ni T , o , fr° m taking that hasty Measure, but 

« Johnson Hall, July 8th, 1763. ghould l b | 0bUged £ retire (wMch 

"I Cannot Conclude without Rep- I hope will not be the case) not only 

resenting to Your Excellency the my Own Tenants, who are upwards of 

great Panic and uneasiness into 120 Families, but all the Rest would 

which the Inhabitants of these parts Immediately follow the Example, 

are cast, which I have endeavored to which I am Determined against doing 

Remove by every Method in my 'till the last Extremity, as I know it 

power, to prevent their Abandoning would prove of general bad Conse- 

their Settlements from their appre- quence." 



Chap. XXI.] 



FALSE ALAEM AT GOSHEN. 



373 



from an Indian war-party, and instantly fled in ex- 
treme dismay, spreading the alarm as they went. 
The neighboring country was soon in a panic. The 
farmers cut the harness of their horses, and, leaving 
their carts and ploughs behind, galloped for their 
lives. Others, snatching up their children and their 
most valuable property, made with all speed for New 
England, not daring to pause until they had crossed 
the Hudson. For several days the neighborhood was 
abandoned, five hundred families having left their 
habitations and fled. 1 Not long after this absurd af- 
fair, an event occurred of a widely different character. 

Allusion has before been made to the carrying- 
place of Niagara, which formed an essential link in 
the chain of communication between the province of 
New York and the interior country. Men and 
military stores were conveyed in boats up the Eiver 
Niagara, as far as the present site of Lewiston. 
Thence a portage road, several miles in length, passed 
along the banks of the stream, and terminated at 
Fort Schlosser, above the cataract. This road trav- 
ersed a region whose sublime features have gained 
for it a world-wide renown. The Eiver Niagara, a 
short distance below the cataract, assumes an aspect 
scarcely less remarkable than that stupendous scene 
itself. Its channel is formed by a vast ravine, whose 
sides, now bare and weather-stained, now shaggy with 
forest-trees, rise in cliffs of appalling height and steep- 
ness. Along this chasm pour all the waters of the 
lakes, heaving their furious surges with the power 
of an ocean and the rage of a mountain torrent. 
About three miles below the cataract, the precipices 

1 Perm. Gaz. No. 1809. 

FF 



374 AMBUSCADE OF THE DEVIL'S HOLE. [Chap. XXI. 

which form the eastern wall of the ravine are broken 
by an abyss of awful depth and blackness, bearing 
at the present day the name of the Devil's Hole. 
In its shallowest part, the precipice sinks sheer down 
to the depth of eighty feet, where it meets a chaotic 
mass of rocks, descending with an abrupt declivity to 
unseen depths below. Within the cold and damp 
recesses of the gulf, a host of forest-trees have rooted 
themselves; and, standing on the perilous brink, one 
may look down upon the mingled foliage of ash, 
poplar, and maple, while, above them all, the spruce 
and fir shoot their sharp and rigid spires upward 
into sunlight. The roar of the convulsed river swells 
heavily on the ear, and, far below, its headlong waters 
may be discerned careering in foam past the openings 
of the matted foliage. 

On the thirteenth of September, a numerous train 
of wagons and pack horses proceeded from the lower 
landing to Fort Schlosser, and on the following morn- 
ing set out on their return, guarded by an escort of 
twenty-four soldiers. They pursued their slow prog- 
ress until they reached a point where the road passed 
along the brink of the Devil's Hole. The gulf 
yawned on their left, while on their right the road 
was skirted by low and densely wooded hills. Sud- 
denly they were greeted by the blaze and clatter of 
a hundred rifles. Then followed the startled cries 
of men, and the bounding of maddened horses. At 
the next instant, a host of Indians broke screeching 
from the woods, and rifle but and tomahawk finished 
the bloody work. All was over in a moment. Horses 
leaped the precipice ; men were driven shrieking into 
the abyss ; teams and wagons went over, crashing to 
atoms among the rocks below. Tradition relates that 



Chap. XXI] 



THE CONVOY ATTACKED. 



375 



the drummer boy of the detachment was caught, in 
his fall, among the branches of a tree, where he 
hung suspended by his drum-strap. Being but slight- 
ly injured, he disengaged himself, and, hiding in the 
recesses of the gulf, finally escaped. One of the 
teamsters also, who was wounded at the first fire, 
contrived to crawl into the woods, where he lay con- 
cealed till the Indians had left the place. Besides 
these two, the only survivor was Stedman, the con- 
ductor of the convoy, who, being well mounted, and 
seeing the whole party forced helplessly towards the 
precipice, wheeled his horse, and resolutely spurred 
through the crowd of Indians. One of them, it is 
said, seized his bridle ; but he freed himself by a 
dexterous use of his knife, and plunged into the 
woods, untouched by the bullets which whistled about 
his head. Flying at full speed through the forest, 
he reached Fort Schlosser in safety. 

The distant sound of the Indian rifles had been 
heard by a party of soldiers, who occupied a small 
fortified camp near the lower landing. Forming in 
haste, they advanced eagerly to the rescue. In an- 
ticipation of this movement, the Indians, who were 
nearly five hundred in number, had separated into 
two parties, one of which had stationed itself at the 
Devil's Hole, to waylay the convoy, while the other 
formed an ambuscade upon the road a mile nearer 
the landing-place. The soldiers, marching precip- 
itately, and huddled in a close body, were suddenly 
assailed by a volley of rifles, which stretched half 
their number dead upon the road. Then, rushing 
from the forest, the Indians cut down the survivors 
with merciless ferocity. A small remnant only escaped 
the massacre, and fled to Fort Xiagara with the 



376 a:\ibuscade of the deahi/s hole. [Chap.xxi. 

tidings. Major Wilkins, who commanded at this 
post, lost no time in marching to the spot, with 
nearly the whole strength of his garrison. Not an 
Indian was to he found. At the two places of 
ambuscade, about seventy dead bodies were counted, 
naked, scalpless, and so horribly mangled that many 
of them could not be recognized. All the wagons 
had been broken to pieces, and such of the horses 
as were not driven over the precipice had been car- 
ried off, laden, doubtless, with the plunder. The 
ambuscade of the Devil's Hole has gained a tra- 
ditionary immortality, adding fearful interest to a 
scene whose native horrors need no aid from the 
imagination. 1 



i MS. Letter — Amherst to Egre- 
mont, October 13. Two anonymous 
letters from officers at Fort Niagara, 
September 16 and 17. Life of Mary 
Jemison. Appendix, MS. Johnson 
Papers. 

One of the actors in the tragedy, a 
Seneca warrior, named Blacksnake, 
was living a few years since at a 
very advanced age. He described 
the scene with great animation to a 
friend of the writer, and as he related 
how the English were forced over 
the precipice, his small eyes glittered 
like those of the serpent whose name 
he bore. 

Extract from a Letter — Niagara, 
September 16, (Penn. Gaz. No. 1815.) 

" On the first hearing of the Firing 
by the Convoy, Capt. Johnston, and 
three Subalterns, marched with about 
80 Men, mostly of Gage's Light In- 
fantry, who were in a little Camp ad- 
jacent ; they had scarce Time to form 
when the Indians appeared at the 
above Pass ; our People fired briskly 
upon them, but was instantly sur- 
rounded, and the Captain who com- 
manded mortally wounded the first 
Fire ; the 3 Subalterns also were soon 
after killed, on which a general Con- 



fusion ensued: The Indians rushed 
in on all Sides, and cut about 60 or 
70 Men in Pieces, including the Con 
voy : Ten of our Men are all we can 
yet learn have made then Escape ; 
they came here through the Woods 
Yesterday. From many Circum- 
stances, it is believed the Senecas 
have a chief Hand in this Affair." 

Extract from a Letter — Niagara. 
September 17, (Penn. Gaz. No. 1815.) 

" Wednesday the 14th Inst, a large 
Body of Indians, some say 300, oth- 
ers 4 or 500, came down upon th8 
Carrying-Place, attacked the Wag- 
gon Escort, which consisted of a 
Serjeant and 24 Men. This small 
Body immediately became a Sacri- 
fice, only two Waggoners escaped. 
Two Companies of Light Infantry 
(the General's and La Hunt's) that 
were encamped at the Lower Land- 
ing, hearing the Fire, instantly rushed 
out to their Relief, headed by Lieuts. 
George Campbell, and Frazier, Lieu- 
tenant Rosco, of the Artillery, and 
Lieutenant Deaton, of the Provin- 
cials ; this Party had not marched 
above a Mile and Half when they 
were attacked, surrounded, and al- 
most every Man cut to Pieces ; the 



Chap. XXI.] 



DISASTER OX LAKE EEIE. 



377 



The Seneca warriors, aided probably by some of 
the western Indians, were the authors of this unex- 
pected attack. Their hostility did not end here. 
Several weeks afterwards, Major Wilkins, with a 
force of six hundred regulars, collected with great 
effort throughout the provinces, was advancing to 
the relief of Detroit. As the boats were slowly 
forcing their way upwards against the swift cur- 
rent above the Falls of Niagara, they were assailed 
by a mere handful of Indians, thrown into con- 
fusion, and driven back to Fort Schlosser with 
serious loss. The next attempt was more fortunate, 
the boats reaching Lake Erie without farther attack; 
but the inauspicious opening of the expedition was 
followed by results yet more disastrous. As they 
approached their destination, a violent storm overtook 
them in the night. The frail bateaux, tossing upon 
the merciless waves of Lake Erie, were overset, 
driven ashore, and many of them dashed to pieces. 
About seventy men perished, all the ammunition and 
stores were destroyed, and the shattered flotilla was 
forced back to Niagara. 1 

Officers were all killed, it is reported, 1 MS. Diary of an officer in Wil- 
on the Enemy's first Fire ; the Sav- kins' expedition against the Indians 
ages rushed down upon them in at Detroit, 
three Columns." 

48 IF * 



CHAPTER XXII. 



DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. 



The advancing frontiers of American civilization 
have always nurtured a class of men of striking and 
peculiar character. The best examples of this char- 
acter have, perhaps, been found among the settlers 
of Western Virginia, and the hardy progeny who 
have sprung from that generous stock. The Virgin- 
ian frontiersman was, as occasion called, a farmer, a 
hunter, and a warrior, by turns. The well-beloved 
rifle was seldom out of his hand, and he never 
deigned to lay aside the fringed frock, moccasons, 
and Indian leggins, which formed the appropriate 
costume of the forest ranger. Concerning the busi- 
ness, pleasures, and refinements of cultivated life, he 
knew little, and cared nothing; and his manners 
were usually rough and obtrusive to the last degree. 
Aloof from mankind, he lived in a world of his 
own, which, in his view, contained all that was de- 
serving of admiration and praise. He looked upon 
himself and his compeers as models of prowess and 
manhood, nay, of all that is elegant and polite ; and 
the forest gallant regarded with peculiar compla- 
cency his own half-savage dress, his swaggering 
gait, and his backwoods jargon. He was wilful, 
headstrong, and quarrelsome; frank, straightforward, 
and generous; brave as the bravest, and utterly 



Chap. XXII] THE VIRGINIAN BACKWOODSMAN. 



379 



intolerant of arbitrary control. His self-confidence 
mounted to audacity. Eminently capable of heroism, 
both in action and endurance, he viewed every 
species of effeminacy with supreme contempt ; and, 
accustomed as he was to entire self-reliance, the 
mutual dependence of conventional life excited his 
especial scorn. With all his ignorance, he had a 
mind by nature quick, vigorous, and penetrating; 
and his mode of life, while it developed the daring 
energy of his character, wrought some of his facul- 
ties to a high degree of acuteness. Many of his 
traits have been reproduced in his offspring. From 
him have sprung those hardy men whose struggles 
and sufferings on the bloody ground of Kentucky 
will always form a striking page in American his- 
tory, and that band of adventurers before whose 
headlong charge, in the valley of Chihuahua, neither 
breastworks, nor batteries, nor fivefold odds could 
avail for a moment. 

At the period of Pontiac's war, the settlements of 
Virginia had extended as far as the Alleghanies, and 
several small towns had already sprung up beyond 
the Blue Ridge. The population of these beautiful 
valleys was, for the most part, thin and scattered, and 
the progress of settlement had been greatly retarded 
by Indian hostilities, which, during the early years 
of the French war, had thrown these borders into 
total confusion. They had contributed, however, 
to enhance the martial temper of the people, and 
give a warlike aspect to the whole frontier. At in- 
tervals, small stockade forts, containing houses and 
cabins, had been erected by the joint labor of the 
inhabitants ; and hither, on occasion of alarm, the 
settlers of the neighborhood congregated for refuge, 



380 



DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. XXII. 



remaining in tolerable security till the danger was 
past. Many of the inhabitants were engaged for a 
great part of the year in hunting, an occupation 
upon which they entered with the keenest relish. 1 
Well versed in woodcraft, unsurpassed as marksmen, 
and practised in all the wiles of Indian war, they 
would have formed, under a more stringent organiza- 
tion, the best possible defence against a savage 
enemy; but each man came and went at his own 
sovereign will, and discipline and obedience were re- 
pugnant to all his habits. 

The frontiers of Maryland and Virginia closely 
resembled each other, but those of Pennsylvania had 
some peculiarities of their own. The population of 
this province was of a most motley complexion, 
being made up of members of various nations, and 
numerous religious sects, English, Irish, German, 
Swiss, Welsh, and Dutch ; Quakers, Presbyterians, 
Lutherans, Dunkers, Mennonists, and Moravians. 
Nor is this catalogue by any means complete. The 
Quakers, to whose peaceful temper the rough fron- 
tier offered no attraction, were confined to the east- 
ern parts of the province. Cumberland county, 
which lies west of the Susquehanna, and may be 
said to have formed the frontier, was then almost 
exclusively occupied by the Irish and their descend- 
ants, who, however, were neither of the Roman faith, 

i ' ; I have often seen them get up intentions of his master, would wag 

early in the morning at this season, his tail, and, by every blandishment 

walk hastily out, and look anxiously in his power, express his readiness 

to the woods, and snuff the autumnal to accompany him to the woods." — 

winds with the highest rapture, then Doddridge, Notes on Western Va. and 

return into the house, and cast a quick Pa. 124. 

and attentive look at the rifle, which For a view of the state of the 

was always suspended to a joist by a frontier, see also Kercheval, Hist, of 

couple of buck's horns, or little forks, the Valley of Virginia ; and Smyth, 

His hunting dog, understanding the Travels in America. 



Chap. XXII] CONSTERNATION OF THE SETTLEES. 



381 



nor of Hibernian origin, being emigrants from the 
colony of Scotch, which forms a numerous and thrifty 
population in the north of Ireland. In religious faith, 
they were stanch and zealous Presbyterians. Long 
residence in the province had modified their national 
character, and imparted many of the peculiar traits 
of the American backwoodsman ; yet the nature of 
their religious tenets produced a certain rigidity of 
temper and demeanor, from which the Virginian was 
wholly free. They were, nevertheless, hot-headed and 
turbulent, often setting law and authority at defiance. 
The counties east of the Susquehanna supported a 
mixed population, among which was conspicuous a 
swarm of German peasants, who had been inun- 
dating the country for many years past, and who for 
the most part were dull and ignorant boors; a char- 
acter not wholly inapplicable to the great body of 
their descendants. The Swiss and German sectaries 
called Mennonists, who were numerous in Lancaster 
county, professed, like the Quakers, principles of 
non-resistance, and refused to bear arms. 1 

It was upon this mingled population that the 
storm of Indian war was now descending with ap- 
palling fury ■ — a fury unparalleled through all past 
and succeeding years. For hundreds of miles from 
north to south, the country was wasted with fire 
and steel. It would be a task alike useless and re- 
volting to explore, through all its details, this horrible 
monotony of blood and havoc. 2 The country was 

1 For an account of the population 2 "There are many Letters in 
of Pennsylvania, see Rupp's two his- Town, in which the Distresses of 
tories of York and Lancaster, and the Frontier Inhabitants are set forth 
of Lebanon and Berks counties, in a most moving and striking Man- 
See also the History of Cumberland ner ; but as these Letters are pretty 
County, and the Penn. Hist. Coll. much the same, and it would be end- 



382 



DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. XXH 



filled with tlie wildest dismay. The people of Vir- 
ginia betook themselves to their forts for refuge. 
But those of Pennsylvania, ill supplied with such 
asylums, fled by thousands, and crowded in upon the 
older settlements. The ranging parties who visited 
the scene of devastation beheld, among the ruined 
famis and plantations, sights of unspeakable horror, 
and discovered, in the depths of the forest, the half- 
consumed bodies of men and women, still bound fast 
to the trees, where they had perished in the fiery 
torture. 1 



less to insert the whole, the following 
is the Substance of some of them, 
as near as we can recollect, viz. : — 
' ; That the Indians had set Fire to 
Houses, Barns, Corn, Hay, and, in 
short, to every Thing that was com- 
bustible, so that the whole Country 
seemed to be in one general Blaze — 
That the Miseries and Distresses of 
the poor People were really shocking 
to Humanity, and beyond the Power 
of Language to describe — That 
Carlisle was become the Barrier, not 
a single Individual being beyond it 
— That every Stable and Hovel in 
the Town was crowded with miser- 
able Refugees, who were reduced to 
a State of Beggary and Despair ; 
their Houses, Cattle and Harvest de- 
stroyed ; and from a plentiful, inde- 
pendent People, they were become 
real Objects of Charity and Commis- 
eration — That it was most dismal 
to see the Streets filled with People, 
in whose Countenances might be dis- 
covered a Mixture of Grief, Madness 
and Despair ; and to hear, now and 
then, the Sighs and Groans of Men, 
the disconsolate Lamentations of 
Women, and the Screams of Chil- 
dren, who had lost their nearest and 
dearest Relatives : And that on both 
Sides of the Susquehannah, for some 
Miles, the Woods were filled with 
poor Families, and their Cattle, who 
make Fires, and live like the Sav- 
ages." — Penn. Gaz. No. 1805. 



Extract from a MS. Letter, signa- 
ture erased — Staunton, July 26. 

" Since the reduction of the Regi- 
ment, I have lived in the country, 
which enables me to eirform yr Ho rir 
of some particulars, I think it is a 
duty incumbent on me to do. I can 
assert that in eight years' service,, I 
never knew such a general conster- 
nation as the late irruption of In- 
dians has occasioned. Should they 
make a second attempt, I am assured 
the country will be laid desolate, 
which I attribute to the following 
reasons. The sudden, great, and 
unexpected slaughter of the people ; 
their being destitute of arms and 
ammunition; the country Lieut, being 
at a distance and not exerting him- 
self, his orders are neglected ; the 
most of the militia officers being 
unfit persons, or unwilling, not to 
say afraid to meet an Enemy ; too 
busy with their harvest to run a risk 
in the field. The Inhabitants left 
without protection, without a person 
to stead them, have nothing to do 
but fly, as the Indians are saving 
and caressing all the negroes they 
take : should it produce an insurrec- 
tion, it may be attended with the 
most serious consequences." 

i " To Col. Francis Lee, or, in his 
Absence, to the next Commanding 
Officer in Loudoun County." (Penn. 
Gaz. No. 1805.) 

" I examined the Express that 



Chap. XXII.] 



ATTACK ON GREENBRIER. 



383 



Among the numerous war-parties which were now 
ravaging the borders, none was more destructive than 
a band, about sixty in number, which ascended the 
Kenawha, and pursued its desolating course among 
the settlements about the sources of that river. 
They passed valley after valley, sometimes attacking 
the inhabitants by surprise, and sometimes murdering 
them under the mask of friendship, until they came 
to the little settlement of Greenbrier, where nearly 
a hundred of the people were assembled at the for- 
tified house of Archibald Glendenning. Seeing two 
or three Indians approach, whom they recognized as 
former acquaintances, they suffered them to enter 
without distrust; but the new-comers were soon 
joined by others, until the entire party were gathered 
in and around the buildings. Some suspicion was 
now awakened, and, in order to propitiate the dan- 
gerous guests, they were presented with the carcass 
of an elk lately brought in by the hunters. They 
immediately cut it up, and began to feast upon it. 
The backwoodsmen, with their families, were as- 
sembled in one large room; and finding themselves 
mingled among the Indians, and embarrassed by the 
presence of the women and children, they remained 
indecisive and irresolute. Meanwhile, an old woman, 
who sat in a corner of the room, and who had 

brought this Letter from Winches- knock her on the Head, to put an 

ter to Loudoun County, and he in- End to her Agony, but this Express 

formed me that he was employed as apprehending the Indians were near 

an Express from Fort Cumberland to at Hand, and not thinking it safe to 

Winchester, which Place he left the lose any Time, rode off, and left the 

4 th Instant, and that passing from poor Woman in the Situation they 

the Fort to Winchester, he saw lying found her." 

on the Road a Woman, who had The circumstances referred to in 
been just scalped, and was then in the text are mentioned in several 
the Agonies of Death, with her pamphlets of the day, on the author- 
Brains hanging over her Skull; his ity of James Smith, a prominent 
Companions made a Proposal to leader of the rangers. 



384 



DESOLATION OE THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. XXII. 



lately received some slight accidental injury, asked 
one of the warriors if he could cure the wound. 
He replied that he thought he could, and, to make 
good his words, killed her with his tomahawk. 
This was the signal for a scene of general butchery. 
A few persons made their escape ; the rest were 
killed or captured. Glenclenning snatched up one 
of his children, and rushed from the house, but was 
shot dead as he leaped the fence. A negro woman 
gamed a place of concealment, whither she was fol- 
lowed by her screaming child; and, fearing lest the 
cries of the boy should betray her, she turned and 
killed him at a blow. Among the prisoners was the 
wife of Glendenning, a woman of a most masculine 
spirit, who, far from being overpowered by what she 
had seen, was excited to the extremity of rage, 
charged her captors with treachery, cowardice, and 
ingratitude, and assailed them with a tempest of 
abuse. Neither the tomahawk, which they bran- 
dished over her head, nor the scalp of her murdered 
husband, with which they struck her in the face, 
could silence the undaunted virago. When the party 
began their retreat, bearing with them a great quan- 
tity of plunder, packed on the horses they had 
stolen, Glenclenning' s wife, with her infant child, 
was placed among a long train of captives, guarded 
before and behind by the Indians. As they defiled, 
along a narrow path which led through a gap in 
the mountains, she handed the child to the woman 
behind her, and, leaving it to its fate, 1 slipped into 

1 Her absence was soon perceived, ineffectual, he dashed out its brains 

on which one of the Indians remarked against a tree. This was related by 

that he would bring the cow back to one of the captives who was taken 

her calf, and, seizing the child, forced to the Indian villages and afterwards 

it to scream violently. This proving redeemed. 



Chap. XXII] ATTACK ON A SCHOOL-HOUSE. 385 

the bushes and escaped. Being well acquainted with 
the woods, she succeeded, before nightfall, in reach- 
ing the spot where the ruins of her dwelling had 
not yet ceased to burn. Here she sought out the 
body of her husband, and covered it with fence rails, 
to protect it from the wolves. "When her task was 
complete, and when night closed around her, the 
bold spirit which had hitherto borne her up sud- 
denly gave way. The recollection of the horrors 
she had witnessed, the presence of the dead, the 
darkness, the solitude, and the gloom of the sur- 
rounding forest, wrought upon her till her terror 
rose to ecstasy, and she remained until daybreak, 
crouched among the bushes, haunted by the threat- 
ening apparition of an armed man, who, to her 
heated imagination, seemed constantly approaching to 
murder her. 1 

Some time after the butchery at Glendenning's 
house, an outrage was perpetrated, unmatched, in its 
fiend-like atrocity, through all the annals of the 
war. In a solitary place, deep within the settled 
limits of Pennsylvania, stood a small school-house, 
one of those rude structures of logs which, to this 
day, may be seen in some of the remote northern 
districts of New England. A man chancing to pass 
by was struck by the unwonted silence, and, push- 
ing open the door, he looked within. In the centre 
lay the master, scalped and lifeless, with a Bible 
clasped in his^ hand, while around the room were 
strewn the bodies of his pupils, nine in number, 
miserably mangled, though one of them still retained 
a spark of life. It was afterwards known that the 

1 Doddridge, Notes, 221. MS. from the relation of Glendenning's 
Narrative, written by Colonel Stuart wife. 

49 GG 



336 DESOLATION OP THE EEOXTLEES. [Chap. XXH 

deed was committed by three or four warriors from 
a village near the Ohio ; and it is but just to ob- 
serve that, when they returned home, their conduct 
was disapproved by some of the tribe. 1 

Page after page might be filled with records like 
these, for the letters and journals of the day are re- 
plete with narratives no less tragical. Districts were 
depopulated, and the progress of the country put 
back for years. Those small and scattered settle- 
ments which formed the feeble van of advancing civ- 
ilization were involved in general destruction, and the 
fate of one may stand for the fate of all. In many 
a woody valley of the Alleghanies. the axe and fire- 
brand of the settlers had laid a wide space open to 
the sun. Here and there, about the clearing, stood 
rough dwellings of logs, surrounded by enclosures 
and cornfields, while, farther out towards the verge 
of the woods, the fallen trees still cumbered the 
ground. From the clay-built chimneys the smoke 
rose in steady columns against the dark verge of 
the forest ; and the afternoon sun. which brightened 
the tops of the mountains, had already left the val- 
ley in shadow. Before many hour's elapsed, the 



i Gordon, Hist. Penn. Appendix. 
Bard, Narrative. 

u Several small parties went on to 
different parts of the settlements : it 
happened that three of them, whom 
I was well acquainted with, came 
from the neighbourhood of where I 
was taken from — they were young 
fellows, perhaps none of them more 
than twenty years of age, — they 
came to a school-house, where they 
murdered and scalped the master, 
and all the scholars, except one, who 
survived after he was scalped, a boy 
about ten years old, and a full cousin 
of mine. I saw the Indians when 



they returned home with the scalps ; 
some of the old Indians were very 
much displeased a: them for killing 
so many children, especially Meep- 
pcuzh-ichcse. or Night Walker, an 
old chief, or half king, — he ascribed 
it to cowardice, which was the great- 
est affront he. could offer them." — 
AfC-illiugii. Xarraiivf. 

Extract from an anonymons Let- 
ter — Philadelphia, Angust 3 0 ,1761 
The Lad' found alive in the 
School, and said to be since dead, is, 
I am informed, yet alive, and in a 
likely Way to recover." 



Chap. XXII.] 



SUFFERINGS OF CAPTIVES. 



387 



night was lighted up with the glare of blazing 
dwellings, and the forest rang with the shrieks of 
the murdered inmates. 1 

Among the records of that day's sufferings and 
disasters, none are more striking than the narratives 
of those whose lives were spared that they might be 
borne captive to the Indian villages. Exposed to the 
extremity of hardship, they were urged forward with 
the assurance of being tomahawked or burnt in case 
their strength should fail them. Some made their 
escape from the clutches of their tormentors ; but of 
these not a few found reason to repent their success, 
lost in a trackless wilderness, and perishing miserably 
from hunger and exposure. Such attempts could 
seldom be made in the neighborhood of the settle- 
ments. It was only when the party had penetrated 
deep into the forest that their vigilance began to 
relax, and their captives were bound and guarded 



i Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Thomas Cresap to Governor Sharpe. 

" Old Town, July 15th, 1763. 

" May it please y r Excellency : 

"I take this opportunity in the 
height of confusion to acquaint you 
with our unhappy and most wretched 
situation at this time, being in hourly 
expectation of being massacred by 
our barbarous and inhuman enemy 
the Indians, we having been three 
days successively attacked by them, 
viz. the 13th, 14th, and this instant." 



" I have enclosed a list of the des- 
olate men and women, and children 
who have fled to my liouse, which is 
enclosed by a small stockade for safe- 
ty? by which you see what a number 
of poor souls, destitute of every neces- 
sary of life, are here penned up, and 
likely to be butchered without im- 
mediate relief and assistance, and can 



expect none, unless from the province 
to which they belong. I shall sub- 
mit to your wiser judgment the best 
and most effectual method for such 
relief, and shall conclude with hoping 
we shall have it in time." 

Extract from a Letter — Frederick 
Town, July 19, 1763, (Penn. Gaz. 
No. 1807.) 

" Every Day, for some Time past, 
has offered the melancholy Scene 
of poor distressed Families driving 
downwards, through this Town, with 
their Effects, who have deserted their 
Plantations, for Fear of falling into 
the cruel Hands of our Savage Ene- 
mies, now daily seen in the Woods. 
And never was Panic more general 
or forcible than that of the Back 
Inhabitants, whose Terrors, at this 
Time, exceed what followed on the 
Defeat of General Braddock, when 
the Frontiers lay open to the Incur- 
sions of both French and Indians." 



388 



DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. XXII 



with less rigorous severity. Then, perhaps, when 
encamped by the side of some mountain brook, and 
when the warriors lay lost hi sleep around their fire, 
the prisoner would cut or burn asunder the cords 
that bound his wrists and ankles, and glide stealthily 
into the woods. With noiseless celerity, he pursues 
his flight over the fallen trunks, through the dense 
undergrowth, and the thousand pitfalls and impedi- 
ments of the forest; now striking the rough, hard 
trunk of a tree, now tripping among the insidious 
network of vines and brambles. All is darkness 
around him, and through the black masses of foli- 
age above he can catch but dubious and uncertain 
glimpses of the dull sky. At length, he can hear 
the gurgle of a neighboring brook, and, turning to- 
wards it, he wades along its pebbly channel, fearing 
lest the soft mould and rotten wood of the forest 
might retain traces enough to direct the bloodhound 
instinct of his; pursuers. With the dawn of the misty 
and cloudy morning, he is still pushing on his way, 
when his attention is caught by the spectral figure 
of an ancient birch-tree, which, with its white bark 
hanging about it in tatters, seems wofully familiar 
to his eye. Among the neighboring bushes, a blue 
smoke curls faintly upward, and, to his horror and 
amazement, he recognizes the very fire from which 
he had fled a few hours before, and the piles of 
spruce boughs upon which the warriors had slept. 
They have gone, however, and are ranging the forest, 
in keen pursuit of the fugitive, who, in his blind 
flight amid the darkness, had circled round to the 
very point whence he set out ; a mistake not uncom- 
mon with careless or inexperienced travellers in the 
woods. Almost in despair, he leaves the ill-omened 



Chap. XXII.] 



THE ESCAPED CAPTIVE. 



389 



spot, and directs his course eastward with greater 
care, the bark of the trees, rougher and thicker on 
the northern side, furnishing a precarious clew for 
his guidance. Around and above him nothing can 
be seen but the same endless monotony of brown 
trunks and green leaves, closing him in with an im- 
pervious screen. He reaches the foot of a mountain, 
and toils upwards against the rugged declivity; but 
when he stands on the summit, the view is still shut 
out by impenetrable thickets. High above them all 
shoots up the tall, gaunt stem of a blasted pine-tree, 
and, hi his eager longing for a view of the surround- 
ing objects, he strains every muscle to ascend. Dark, 
wild, and lonely, the wilderness stretches around 
him, half hidden in clouds, half open to the sight, 
mountain and valley, crag and glistening stream; but 
nowhere can he discern the trace of human hand 
or any hope of rest and harborage. Before he can 
look for relief, league upon league must be passed, 
without food to sustain or weapon to defend him. 
He descends the mountain, forcing his way through 
the undergrowth of laurel bushes, while the clouds 
sink lower, and a storm of sleet and rain descends 
upon the waste. Through such scenes, and under 
such exposures, he presses onward, sustaining life 
with the aid of roots and berries or the flesh of rep- 
tiles. Perhaps, in the last extremity, some party of 
rangers find him, and bring him to a place of refuge ; 
perhaps, by his own efforts, he reaches some frontier 
post, where rough lodging and rough fare seem to 
him unheard-of luxury; or, perhaps, spent with fa- 
tigue and famine, he perishes in despair, a meagre 
banquet for the wolves. 

Within two or three weeks after the war had 



390 



DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. XXII. 



broken out, the older towns and settlements of Penn- 
sylvania were crowded with refugees from the deserted 
frontier, reduced, in many cases, to the extremity of 
destitution. 1 Sermons were preached in their behalf 
at Philadelphia; the religious societies united for 
their relief, and liberal contributions were added by 
individuals. While private aid was thus generously 
bestowed upon the sufferers, the government showed 
no such promptness in arresting the public calamity. 
Early in July, Governor Hamilton had convoked the 
Assembly, and, representing the distress of the bor- 
ders, had urged them to take measures of defence. 2 
But the provincial government of Pennsylvania was 
more conducive to prosperity in time of peace than 
to prompt efficiency in time of war. The Quakers, 
who held a majority in the Assembly, were, from 
principle and practice, the reverse of warlike, and, 
regarding the Indians with a blind partiality, were 
reluctant to take measures against them. Proud, and 
with some reason, of the justice and humanity which 
had marked their conduct towards the Indian race, 
they had learned to regard themselves as its advo- 
cates and patrons, and their zeal was greatly sharpened 
by opposition and political prejudice. They now pre- 
tended that the accounts from the frontier were 



i Extract from a Letter — Win- 
chester, Virginia, June 22d, (Penn. 
Gaz. No. 1801.) 

" Last Night I reached this Place. 
I have been at Fort Cumberland sev- 
eral Days, but the Indians having 
killed nine People, and burnt several 
Houses near Fort Bedford, made me 
think it prudent to remove from those 
Parts, from which, I suppose, near 
500 Families have run away within 
this week. — I assure you it was a 
most melancholy Sight, to see such 



Numbers of poor People, who had 
abandoned their Settlements in such 
Consternation and Hurry, that they 
had hardly any thing with them but 
their Children. And what is still 
worse, I dare say there is not Money 
enough amongst the whole Families 
to maintain a fifth Part of them till 
the Fall ; and none of the poor Crea- 
tures can get a Hovel to shelter them 
from the Weather, but lie about 
scattered in the Woods." 
2 Votes of Assembly, V. 259. 



Chap. Effi] FEEBLE MEASURES OE DEFENCE. 



391 



grossly exaggerated; and, finding this ground untena- 
ble, they alleged, with better show of reason, that the 
Indians were driven into hostility by the ill treat- 
ment of the proprietaries and their partisans. They 
recognized, however, the necessity of defensive meas- 
ures, and accordingly passed a bill for raising and 
equipping a force of seven hundred men, to be com- 
posed of frontier farmers, and to be kept in pay only 
during the time of harvest. They were not to leave 
the settled parts of the province, to engage in offen- 
sive operations of any kind, nor even to perform gar- 
rison duty, their sole object being to enable the people 
to gather in their crops unmolested. 

This force was divided into numerous small de- 
tached parties, who were stationed here and there, at 
farm-houses and hamlets on both sides of the Sus- 
quehanna, with orders to range the woods daily from 
post to post, thus forming a feeble chain of defence 
across the whole frontier. The two companies as- 
signed to Lancaster county were placed under the 
command of a clergyman, Mr. John Elder, pastor of 
the Presbyterian church of Paxton, a man of worth 
and education, and held in great respect upon the 
borders. He discharged his military functions with 
address and judgment, drawing a cordon of troops 
across the front of the county, and preserving the 
inhabitants free from attack for a considerable time. 1 



1 Extract from a MS. Letter — 
John Elder to Governor Perm. 

."Paxton, 4th August, 1763. 

"Sir: 

"The service your Hon r was 
pleased to appoint me to, I have per- 
formed to the bsst of my power ; tho' 
not with success equal to my desires. 



However, both companies will, I im- 
agine, be complete in a few days: 
there are now upwards of 30 men in 
each, exclusive of officers, who are 
now and have been employed since 
their enlistment in such sendee as is 
thought most safe and encouraging 
to the Frontier inhabitants, who are 
here and every where else in the 



392 



DESOLATION OF THE ERONTIEKS. [Chap. XXII. 



The feeble measures adopted by trie Pennsylvania 
Assembly highly excited the wrath of Sir Jeffrey Am- 
herst, and he did not hesitate to give his feelings 
an emphatic expression. " The conduct of the Penn- 
sylvania legislature," he writes, "is altogether so 
infatuated and stupidly obstinate, that I want words 
to express my indignation thereat ; but the colony of 
Virginia, I hope, will have the honor of not only 
driving the enemy from its own settlements, but that 
of protecting those of its neighbors, who have not 
spirit to defend themselves." 

Virginia did, in truth, exhibit a vigor and activity 
not unworthy of praise. Unlike Pennsylvania, she 
had the advantage of an existing militia law, and the 
House of Burgesses was neither embarrassed by scru- 
ples against the shedding of blood, nor by any pecu- 
liar tenderness towards the Indian race. The house, 
however, was not immediately summoned together, and 
the governor and council, without awaiting the delay 
of such a measure, called out a thousand of the 
militia, five hundred of whom were assigned to the 
command of Colonel Stephen, and an equal number 
to that of Major Lewis. 1 The presence of these 
men, most of whom were woodsmen and hunters, re- 
stored order and confidence to the distracted borders, 
and the inhabitants, before pent up in their forts, or 
flying before the enemy, now took the field, in con- 
junction with the militia. Many severe actions were 
fought, but it seldom happened that the Indians 
could stand their ground against the border riflemen. 



back countries quite sunk and dis- 
pirited, so that it's to be feared that 
on any attack of the enemy, a con- 
siderable part of the country will be 
evacuated, as all seem inclinable to 



seek safety rather in flight than in 
opposing the Savage Foe." 

1 Sparks, Writings of Washing- 
ton, II. 340. 



Chap. XXII] COUEAGE OE THE BOEDEEEES. 



393 



The latter were uniformly victorious until the end 
of the summer, when Captains Moffat and Phillips, 
with sixty men, were lured into an ambuscade, and 
routed, with the loss of half their number. A few 
weeks after, they took an ample revenge. Learning 
by their scouts that more than a hundred warriors 
were encamped near Jackson's River, preparing to at- 
tack the settlements, they advanced secretly to the 
spot, and set upon them with such fury, that the 
whole party broke away and fled, leaving weapons, 
provision, articles of dress, and implements of magic, 
in the hands of the victors. 

Meanwhile the frontier people of Pennsylvania, find- 
ing that they could hope for little aid from govern- 
ment, bestirred themselves with admirable spirit in 
their own defence. The march of Bouquet, and the 
victory of Bushy Run, caused a temporary lull in the 
storm, thus enabling some of the bolder inhabitants, 
who had fled to Shippensburg, Carlisle, and other 
places of refuge, to return to their farms, where they 
determined, if possible, to remain. With this reso- 
lution, the people of the Great Cove, and the adjacent 
valleys beyond Shippensburg, raised among them- 
selves a small body of riflemen, which they placed 
under the command of James Smith, a man whose 
resolute and daring character, no less than the na- 
tive vigor of his intellect, gave him great popularity 
and influence with the borderers. Having been, for 
several years, a prisoner among the Indians, he was 
thoroughly acquainted with their mode of fighting. 
He trained his men in the Indian tactics and disci- 
pline, and directed them to assume the dress of war- 
riors, and paint their faces red and black, so that, 
in appearance, they were hardly distinguishable from 
50 



394 



DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. vv Ti- 



the enemy. 1 Thus equipped, they scoured the woods 
in front of the settlements, had various skmniskes 
with the enemy, and discharged their difficult task 
with such success that the inhabitants of the neigh- 
borhood were not again driven from their homes. 

The attacks on the Pennsylvania frontier were 
known to proceed, in great measure, from several 
Indian villages, situated high up the west branch 
of the Susquehanna, and inhabited by a debauched 
rabble composed of various tribes, of whom the most 
conspicuous were Delawares. To root out this nest 
of banditti would be the most effectual means of 
protecting the settlements, and a hundred and ten 
men offered themselves for the enterprise. They 
marched about the end of August ; but on their way 
along the banks of the Susquehanna, they encoun- 
tered fifty warriors, advancing against the borders. 
The Indians had the first fire, and drove in the van- 
guard of the white men. A hot fight ensued. The 
warriors fought naked, painted black from head to 
foot, so that, as they leaped among the trees, they 
seemed to their opponents like demons of the forest. 
They were driven back with heavy loss, and the vol- 
unteers returned in triumph, though without accom- 
plishing the object of the expedition, for which, in- 
deed, their numbers- were scarcely adequate. 2 



i Petition of the Inhabitants of the 
Great Cove. Smith, Narrative. This 
is a highly interesting account of the 
vriter's captivity among the Indians, 
and his adventures during several 
succeeding years. In the Avar of the 
revolution, he acted the part of a zeal- 
ous patriot. He lived until the year 
1812, about which time the western 
Indians having broken out into hos- 
tility, he gave his country the benefit 



of his ample experience, by publish- 
ing a treatise on the Indian mode of 
warfare. In Kentucky, where he 
spent the latter part of his life, he was 
much respected, and several times 
elected to the legislature. This nar- 
rative may be found in Drake's Trage- 
dies of the Wilderness, and in several 
other similar collections. 
2 Penn. Gaz. No. 1811. 



Chap. XXII.] ARMSTRONG'S EXPEDITION. 



395 



Within a few weeks after their return, Colonel 
Armstrong, a veteran partisan of the French war, 
raised three hundred men, the best in Cumberland 
county, with a view to the effectual destruction of 
the Susquehanna villages. Leaving their rendezvous 
at the crossings of the Juniata, about the first of 
October, they arrived on the sixth at the Great 
Island, high up the west branch. On or near this 
island were situated the principal villages of the ene- 
my. But the Indians had vanished, abandoning their 
houses, their cornfields, their stolen horses and cattle, 
and the accumulated spoil of the settlements. Leav- 
ing a detachment to burn the towns and lay waste 
the fields, Armstrong, with the main body of his men, 
followed close on the trail of the fugitives, and, pur- 
suing them through a rugged and difficult country, 
soon arrived at another village, thirty miles above 
the former. His scouts informed him that the place 
was full of Indians, and his men, forming a circle 
around it, rushed in upon the cabins at a given sig- 
nal. The Indians were gone, having stolen away in 
such haste that the hominy and bear's meat, prepared 
for their meal, were found smoking upon their dishes 
of birch bark. Having burned the place to the 
ground, the party returned to the Great Island, and, 
rejoining their companions, descended the Susque- 
hanna, reaching Fort Augusta in a wretched con- 
dition, fatigued, half famished, and quarrelling among 
themselves. 1 

Scarcely were they returned, when another expe- 
dition was set on foot, in which a portion of them 

i Perm. Gaz. Nos. 1816-1818. MS. Letter — Graydon to Bird, Octo- 
ber 12. 



396 



DESOLATION OF THE EKONTIERS. [Chap. XXII. 



were persuaded to take part. During the previous 
year, a body of settlers from Connecticut had pos- 
sessed themselves of the valley of Wyoming, on the 
east branch of the Susquehanna, in defiance of the 
government of Pennsylvania, and to the great dis- 
pleasure of the Indians. The object of the expedition 
was to remove these settlers, and destroy their corn 
and provisions, which might otherwise fall into the 
hands of the enemy. The party, composed chiefly of 
volunteers from Lancaster county, set out from Har- 
ris' Ferry, under the command of Major Clayton, 
and reached Wyoming on the seventeenth of October. 
They were too late. Two days before their arrival, a 
massacre had been perpetrated, the fitting precursor 
of that subsequent scene of blood which, embalmed 
in the poetic romance of Campbell, has made the 
name of Wyoming a household word. The settle- 
ment was a pile of ashes and cinders, and the bodies 
of its miserable inhabitant^ offered frightful proof of 
the cruelties which, with diabolical ingenuity, had 
been inflicted upon them. 1 A large war-party had 
fallen upon the place, killed and carried off more 
than twenty of the people, and driven the rest, men, 
women, and children, in terror to the mountains. 
Gaming a point which commanded the whole ex- 
panse of the valley below, the fugitives looked back, 
and saw the smoke rolling up in volumes from their 
burning homes, while the Indians could be discerned 
roaming about in quest of plunder, or feasting in 
groups upon the slaughtered cattle. One of the 

1 Extract from a MS. Letter — posed to be put in red hot, and several 

Paxton, October 23. of the men had awls thrust into their 

" The woman was roasted, and eyes, and spears, arrows, pitchforks, 

had two hinges in her hands, sup- etc., sticking in their bodies." 



Chap. XXII.] 



QUAKER PREJUDICE. 



397 



principal settlers, a man named Hopkins, was sep- 
arated from the rest, and driven into the woods. 
Finding himself closely pursued, he crept into the 
huge, hollow trunk of a fallen tree, while the In- 
dians passed without observing him. They soon re- 
turned to the spot, and ranged the surrounding 
woods like hounds at fault, two of them approach- 
ing so near, that, as Hopkins declared, he could 
hear the bullets rattle in their pouches. The search 
was unavailing; but the fugitive did not venture 
from his place of concealment until extreme hunger 
forced him to return to the ruined settlement in 
search of food. The Indians had abandoned it 
some time before, and, having found means to restore 
his exhausted strength, he directed his course towards 
the settlements of the Delaware, which he reached 
after many days of wandering. 1 

Having buried the dead bodies of those who had 
fallen in the massacre, Clayton and his party re- 
turned to the settlements. The Quakers, who seemed 
resolved that they would neither defend the people 
of the frontier nor allow them to defend themselves, 
vehemently inveighed against the several expeditions 
up the Susquehanna, and denounced them as sedi- 
tious and murderous. Urged by their blind prejudice 
in favor of the Indians, they insisted that the bands 
of the Upper Susquehanna were friendly to the Eng- 
lish ; whereas, with the single exception of a few 
Moravian converts near Wyoming, who had not been 
molested by the whites, there could be no rational 
doubt that these savages nourished a rancorous and 
malignant hatred against the province. But the 

i MS. Elder Papers. Chapman, Hist. Wyoming, 70. Miner, Hist. Wy- 
oming, 56. 

HH 



398 DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. XXII. 

Quakers, removed by their situation from all fear of 
the tomahawk, securely vented their spite against 
the borderers, and doggedly closed their ears to the 
truth. 1 Meanwhile, the people of the frontier be- 
sieged the Assembly with petitions for relief; but 
little heed was given to their complaints. 

Sir Jeffrey Amherst had recently resigned his ofhce 
of commander-in-chief, and General Gage, a man of 
less efficiency than his vigorous and able predecessor, 
was appointed to succeed him. Immediately before 
his departure for England, Amherst had made a 
requisition upon the several provinces for troops to 
march against the Indians early in the spring, and 
the first act of Gage was to confirm this requisition. 
New York was called upon to furnish fourteen hun- 
dred men, and New Jersey six hundred. 2 The 
demand was granted, on condition that the New 
England provinces should also contribute a just 



1 It has already been stated that 
the Quakers were confined to the 
eastern parts of the province. That 
their security was owing to their 
local situation, rather than to the 
kind feeling of the Indians towards 
them, is shown by the fact, that, of 
the very few of their number who 
lived in exposed positions, several 
were killed. One of them in partic- 
ular, John Fincher, seeing his house 
about to be attacked, went out to 
meet the warriors, declared that he 
was a Quaker, and begged for mercy. 
The Indians laughed, and struck him 
dead with a tomahawk. 

2 MS. Gage Papers. 

Extract from a MS. Letter — 

William Smith, Jr., to . 

"New York, 22nd Nov., 1763. 

" Is not Mr. Amherst the happiest 
of men to get out of this Trouble so 
seasonably ? At last he was obliged 
to submit, to give the despised In- 



dians so great a mark of his Consid- 
eration, as to confess he could not 
defend us, and to make a requisition 
of 1400 Provincials by the Spring — 
600 more he demands from New Jer- 
sey. Our People refused all but a 
few for immediate Defence, con- 
ceiving that all the Northern Colo- 
nies ought to contribute equally, and 
upon an apprehension that he has 
called for too insufficient an aid. 



" Is not Gage to be pitied ? The 
war will be a tedious one, nor can it 
be glorious, even tho' attended with 
Success. Instead of decisive Battles, 
woodland skirmishes — instead of 
Colours and Cannon, our Trophies 
will be stinking scalps. — Heaven 
preserve you, my Friend, from a War 
conducted by a spirit of Murder 
rather than of brave and generous 
offence." 



Chap. XXII.] 



POLITICAL DISPUTES. 



399 



proportion to trie general defence. This condition was 
complied with, and the troops were raised. 

Pennsylvania had been required to furnish a thou- 
sand men ; but in this quarter many difficulties inter- 
vened. The Assembly of the province, never prompt 
to vote supplies for military purposes, was now em- 
broiled in that obstinate quarrel with the propri- 
etors, which for years past had clogged all the 
wheels of government. The proprietors insisted on 
certain pretended rights, which the Assembly stren- 
uously opposed ; and the governors, who represented 
the proprietary interest, were bound by imperative 
instructions to assert these claims, in spite of all 
opposition. On the present occasion, the chief point 
of dispute related to the taxation of the proprietary 
estates, the governor, hi conformity with his instruc- 
tions, demanding that they should be assessed at a 
lower rate than other lands of equal value in the 
province. The Assembly stood their ground, and 
refused to remove the obnoxious clauses in the sup- 
ply bill. Message after message passed between the 
house and the governor; mutual recrimination en- 
sued, and ill blood was engendered. At length, in 
view of the miserable condition of the province, the 
desperation of the frontier people, and the danger 
of a general insurrection, the Assembly consented to 
waive their rights, and passed the bill under protest, 
voting fifty thousand pounds for the sendee of the 
campaign. 1 The quarrel was so long protracted that 
the bill did not receive the governor's assent until 
the spring, and in the mean time the province had 
become the scene of most singular disorders. 

1 Gordon, Hist. Penn. 414. Penn. Gaz. No. 1840. Votes of Assembly, 
V. 325. 



400 



DESOLATION OF THE FRONTIERS. [Chap. XXII. 



These disturbances may be ascribed, in some degree, 
to the renewed activity of the enemy, who, during a 
great part of the autumn, had left the borders in 
comparative quiet. As the winter closed in, then- 
attacks became more frequent, and districts, re- 
peopled during the interval of calm, were again 
made desolate. Again the valleys were illumined 
by the flames of burning houses, and families fled 
shivering through the biting air of the winter night, 
while the fires behind them shed a ruddy glow 
upon the snow-covered mountains. The scouts, 
who on snowshoes explored the track of the ma- 
rauders, found the bodies of their victims lying in 
the forest, stripped naked, and frozen to marble 
hardness. The distress, wrath, and terror of the 
borderers produced results sufficiently remarkable to 
deserve a separate examination. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE INDIANS RAISE THE SIEGE OF DETROIT, 

I return to the long-forgotten garrison of De- 
troit, which was left still beleaguered by an increas- 
ing multitude of savages, and disheartened by the 
unhappy defeat of Captain Dalzell's detachment. The 
schooner, so boldly defended by her crew, against 
a force of more than twenty times their number, 
brought to the fort a much needed supply of pro- 
vision. It was not, however, adequate to the wants 
of the garrison, and the whole were put upon the 
shortest possible allowance. 

It was now the end of September. The Indians, 
with unexampled pertinacity, had pressed the siege 
since the beginning of May; but at length their un- 
wonted constancy began to fail. The tidings had 
reached them that Major Wilkins, with a strong 
force, was on his way to Detroit. They feared the 
consequences of an attack, especially as their am- 
munition was almost exhausted; and by this time, 
most of them were inclined to sue for peace, as the 
easiest mode of gaining safety for themselves, and 
at the same time lulling the English into security. 1 
They thought that by this means they might retire 



i MS. Letter — Gage to Johnson, Dec. 25, 1763. Penn. Gaz. No. 1827. 
51 HH* 



402 THE SIEGE OF DETEOIT KAISED. [Chap. XXIII. 

unmolested to their wintering grounds, and renew 
the war with good hope of success in the spring. 

Accordingly, on the twelfth of October, Wapocom- 
oguth, great chief of the Mississaug as, a branch of 
the Ojibwas, living within the present limits of 
Upper Canada, came to the fort with a pipe of 
peace. He began his speech to Major Gladwyn, 
with the glaring falsehood that he and his people 
had always been friends of the English. They, were 
now, he added, anxious to conclude a formal treaty 
of lasting peace and amity. He next declared that 
he had been sent as deputy by the Pottawattamies, 
Ojibwas, and Wyandots, who had instructed him to 
say that they sincerely repented of their bad con- 
duct, asked forgiveness, and humbly begged for 
peace. Gladwyn perfectly understood the hollowness 
of these professions, but the circumstances in which 
he was placed made it expedient to listen to their 
overtures. His garrison was threatened with famine, 
and it was impossible to procure provision while 
completely surrounded by hostile Indians. He there- 
fore replied, that, though he was not empowered to 
grant peace, he would still consent to a truce. The 
Mississauga deputy left the fort with this reply, and 
Gladwyn immediately took advantage of this lull in 
the storm to collect provision among the Cana- 
dians; an attempt in which he succeeded so well 
that the fort was soon furnished with a tolerable 
supply for the winter. 

The Ottawas alone, animated by the indomitable 
spirit of Pontiac, had refused to ask for peace, and 
still persisted in a course of petty hostilities. They 
fired at intervals on the English foraging parties, 
until, on the thirtieth of October, an unexpected 



Chap. XXIII.] LETTER ERQM NEYON TO PONTIAC. 



403 



blow was given to the hopes of their great chief. 
French messengers came to Detroit with a letter from 
M. Neyon, commandant of Fort Chartres, the principal 
post in the Illinois country. This letter was one of 
those which, on demand of General Amherst, Neyon, 
with a very bad grace, had sent to the different In- 
dian tribes. It assured Pontiac that he could expect 
no assistance from the French; that they and the 
English were now at peace, and regarded each other 
as brothers, and that the Indians had better aban- 
don hostilities which could lead to no good result. 1 
The emotions of Pontiac at receiving this message 
may be conceived. His long-cherished hopes of as- 
sistance from the French were swept away at once, 
and he saw himself and his people thrown back 
upon their own slender resources. In rage and mor- 
tification, he left Detroit, and, with a number of his 
chiefs, repaired to the River Maumee, with the design 
of stirring up the Indians in that quarter, and re- 
newing hostilities in the spring. 

About the middle of November, not many days 
after Pontiac' s departure, two friendly Wyandot In- 
dians from the ancient settlement at Lorette, near 
Quebec, crossed the river, and asked admittance into 
the fort. One of them then masking his powder- 
horn, and, taking out a false bottom, disclosed a 
closely-folded letter, which he gave to Major Glad- 
wyn. The letter was from Major Wilkins, and con- 
tained the disastrous news that the detachment under 
his command had been overtaken by a storm, that 
many of the boats had been wrecked, that seventy 

1 MS. Lettre de M. Neyon de ment a ceux de Detroit, a Pondiac, 
Valliere, a tous les nations de la Chef des Gntawas a Detroit. 
Belle Riviere et du Lac, et notam- 



404 



THE SEEGE OF DETROIT RAISED. [Chap. XXIII. 



men had perished, that all the stores and anrmunition 
had been destroyed, and the detachment forced to re- 
turn to Niagara. This intelligence had an effect upon 
the garrison which rendered the prospect of the cold 
and cheerless whiter yet more dreary and forlorn. 

The summer had long since drawn to a close, and 
the verdant landscape around Detroit had undergone 
an ominous transformation. Touched by the first 
October frosts, the forest glowed like a bed of 
tulips ; and all along the river bank, the painted 
foliage, brightened by the autumnal sun, reflected its 
mingled colors upon the dark water below. The 
western wind was fraught with life and exhilaration, 
and in the clear, sharp air, the form of the fish- 
hawk, sailing over the distant headland, seemed 
almost within range of the sportsman's gun. 

A week or two elapsed, and then succeeded that 
gentler season which bears among us the name of 
the Indian summer ; when a light haze rests upon 
the morning landscape, and the many-colored woods 
seem wrapped in the thin drapery of a veil; when 
the air is mild and calm as that of early June, and 
at evening the sun goes down amid a warm, volup- 
tuous beauty, that may well outrival the softest tints 
of Italy. But through all the still and breathless 
afternoon, the leaves have fallen fast in the woods, 
like flakes of snow, and every thing betokens that 
the last melancholy change is at hand. And, in 
truth, on the morrow the sky is overspread with 
cold and stormy clouds, and a raw, piercing wind 
blows angrily from the north-east. The shivering 
sentinel quickens his step along the rampart, and 
the half-naked Indian folds his tattered blanket close 
around him. The shrivelled leaves are blown from 



Chap. XXIII.] INDIANS AT THEIR HUNTING-GROUNDS. 405 

the trees, and soon the gusts are whistling and 
howling amid gray, naked twigs and mossy branches. 
Here and there, indeed, the beech-tree, as the wind 
sweeps among its rigid boughs, shakes its pale as- 
semblage of crisp and rustling leaves. The pines 
and firs, with their rough tops of dark evergreen, 
bend and moan in the wind, and the crow caws 
sullenly, as, struggling against the gusts, he flaps 
his black wings above the denuded woods. 

The vicinity of Detroit was now almost abandoned 
by its besiegers, who had scattered among the forests 
to seek sustenance through the winter for themselves 
and their families. Unlike the buffalo-hunting tribes 
of the western plains, they could not at this season 
remain together in large bodies. The comparative 
scarcity of game forced them to separate into small 
bands, or even into single families. Some steered 
their canoes far northward, across Lake Huron, while 
others turned westward, and struck into the great 
wilderness of Michigan. Wandering among forests, 
bleak, cheerless, and choked with snow, now famish- 
ing with want, now cloyed with repletion, they 
passed the dull, cold winter. The chase yielded 
their only subsistence, and the slender lodges, borne 
on the backs of the squaws, were their only cover- 
ing. Encamped at intervals by the margin of some 
frozen lake, surrounded by all that is most stern 
and dreary in the aspects of nature, they were sub- 
jected to every hardship, and endured all with stub- 
born stoicism. Sometimes, during the frosty night, 
they were gathered in groups about the flick- 
ering lodge-fire, listening to traditions of their fore- 
fathers, and wild tales of magic and incantation. 
Perhaps, before the season was past, some bloody 



406 



THE SIEGE OF DETROIT KAISED. [Chap. XXIII. 



feud broke out among them; perhaps they were 
assailed by their ancient enemies the Dahcotah ; or 
perhaps some sinister omen or evil dream spread 
more terror through the camp than the presence of 
an actual danger would have awakened. With the 
return of spring, the scattered parties once more 
united, and moved towards Detroit, to indulge their 
unforgotten hatred against the English. 

Detroit had been the central point of the Indian 
operations ; its capture had been their favorite pro- 
ject; around it they had concentrated their greatest 
force, and the failure of the attempt proved disas- 
trous to their cause. Upon the Six Nations, more 
especially, it produced a marked effect. The friendly 
tribes of this confederacy were confirmed in their 
friendship, while the hostile Senecas began to lose 
heart. Availing himself of this state of things, Sir 
William Johnson, about the middle of the winter, 
persuaded a number of Six Nation warriors, by dint 
of gifts and promises, to go out against the enemy. 
He stimulated their zeal by offering rewards of fifty 
dollars for the heads of the two principal Delaware 
chiefs. 1 Two hundred of them, accompanied by a 
few provincials, left the Oneida country during the 
month of February, and directed their course south- 
ward. They had been out but a few days, when 

i Extract from a MS. Letter — Sir of the Party 50 Dollars for the Head 

W. Johnson to . Men of the Delawares there, viz. 

" For God's Sake exert yourselves Onuperaquedra, and 50 Dollars more 

like Men whose Honour & every for the Head of Long Coat, alias , 

thing dear to them is now at stake ; in which case they must either bring 

the General has great Expectations thern alive or their whole Heads ; the 

from the success of your Party, & Money shall be paid to the Man 

indeed so have all People here, & I who takes or brings me them, or 

hope they will not be mistaken, — in their Heads, — this I would have you 

Order to Encourage your party I will, tell to the Head men of the Party, 

out of my own Pocket, pay to any as it will make them more eager." 



Chap. XXIII.] THE WAK IX THE SOUTH. 



407 



they found an encampment of forty Delawares, com- 
manded by a formidable chief, known as Captain 
Bull, who, with his warriors, was on his way to attack 
the settlements. They surrounded the camp undis- 
covered, during the night, and at dawn of day raised 
the war-whoop and rushed in. The astonished Dela- 
wares had no time to snatch their arms. They were 
all made prisoners, taken to Albany, and thence sent 
clown to Xew York, where they were conducted, un- 
der a strong guard, to the common jail, the mob 
crowding round them as they passed, and admiring 
the sullen ferocity of their countenances. Xot long 
after this success, Captain Montour, with a party of 
provincials and Six Xation warriors, destroyed the 
town of Kanestio, and other hostile villages, on the 
upper branches of the Susquehanna. This blow, in- 
flicted by supposed friends, produced more effect upon 
the enemy than greater reverses would have done, if 
encountered at the hands of the English alone. 1 

The calamities which overwhelmed the borders of 
the middle provinces were not unfelt at the south. 
It was happy for the people of the Carolinas that 
the Cherokees, who had broken out against them 
three years before, had at that time received a chas- 
tisement which they could never forget, and from 
which they had not yet begun to recover. They 
were thus compelled to remain comparatively quiet, 
while the ancient feud between them and the north- 
ern tribes would, under any circumstances, have pre- 
vented their uniting with the latter. The contagion 
of the war reached them, however, and they per- 
petrated numerous murders; while the neighboring 



1 MS. Johnson Papers. 



408 THE SIEGE OE DETROIT RAISED. [Chap. XXIII. 

nation of the Creeks rose in open hostility, and com- 
mitted formidable ravages. Towards the north, the 
Indian tribes were compelled, by their position, to 
remain tranquil, yet they showed many signs of un- 
easiness ; and those of Nova Scotia caused great alarm, 
by mustering in large bodies in the neighborhood of 
Halifax. The excitement among them was tempo- 
rary, and they dispersed without attempting mischief. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



Alokg the thinly- settled borders, two thousand per- 
sons had been killed, or carried off, and nearly an 
equal number of families driven from their homes. 1 
The frontier people of Pennsylvania, goaded to des- 
peration by long-continued suffering, were divided 
between rage against the Indians, and resentment 
against the Quakers, who had yielded them cold sym- 
pathy and inefficient aid. The horror and fear, grief 
and fury, with which these men looked upon the 
mangled remains of friends and relatives, set language 
at defiance. They were of a rude and hardy stamp, 
hunters, scouts, rangers, Indian traders, and back- 
woods farmers, who had grown up with arms in their 
hands, and been trained under all the influences of 
the warlike frontier. They fiercely complained that 
they were interposed as a barrier between the rest 
of the province and a ferocious enemy, and that they 
were sacrificed to the safety of men who looked with 

1 Extract from a MS. Letter — whose frontiers they have killed and 

George Croghan to the Board of captivated not less than two thousand 

Trade. of his majesty's subjects, and drove 

"They can with great ease enter some thousands to beggary and the 

our colonies, and cut off our frontier greatest distress, besides burning 

settlements, and thereby lay waste to the ground nine forts or block- 

a large tract of country, which indeed houses in the country, and killing a 

they have effected in the space of number of his majesty's troops and 

four months, in Virginia, Maryland, traders." 
Pennsylvania, and the Jerseys, on 

52 ii 



410 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



indifference on their miseries, and lost no opportunity 
to extenuate and smooth away the cruelties of their 
destroyers. 1 They declared that the Quakers would 
go farther to befriend a murdering Delaware than 
to succor a fellow-countryman — that they loved red 
blood better than white, and a pagan better than a 
Presbyterian. The Pennsylvania borderers were, as 
we have seen, chiefly the descendants of Presbyterian 
emigrants from the north of Ireland. They had in- 
herited some portion of their forefathers' sectarian 
zeal, which, while it did nothing to soften the bar- 
barity of their manners, served to inflame their ani- 
mosity against the Quakers, and added bitterness to 
their just complaints. It supplied, moreover, a con- 
venient sanction for the indulgence of their hatred 
and vengeance, for in the general turmoil of their 
passions, fanaticism too was awakened, and they in- 
terpreted the command that Joshua should destroy 
the heathen 2 into an injunction that they should ex- 
terminate the Indians. 

The prevailing excitement was not confined to the 
vulgar. Even the clergy and the chief magistrates 
shared it, and while they lamented the excess of the 
popular resentment, they maintained that the general 



•l Extract from the Declaration of 
Lazarus Stewart. 

" Did we not brave the summer's 
heat and the winter's cold, and the 
savage tomahawk, while the Inhabit- 
ants of Philadelphia, Philadelphia 
county, Bucks, and Chester, 'ate, 
drank, and were merry ' ? 

"If a white man kill an Indian, it 
is a murder far exceeding any crime 
upon record ; he must not be tried in 
the county where he lives, or where 
the offence was committed, but in 
Philadelphia, that he may be tried, 



convicted, sentenced and hung with- 
out delay. If an Indian kill a white 
man, it was the act of an ignorant 
Heathen, perhaps in liquor ; alas, poor 
innocent! he is sent to the friendly 
Indians that he may be made a Chris- 
tian" 

2 "And when the Lord thy God 
shall deliver them before thee, thou 
shalt smite them, and utterly destroy 
them ; thou shalt make no covenant 
with them, nor show mercy unto 
them." — Deuteronomy, vii. 2. 



Chap. XXIV.] EFFECTS OF INDIAN HOSTILITIES. 



411 



complaints were founded in justice. Viewing all the 
circumstances, it is not greatly to be wondered at 
that some of the more violent class were inflamed 
to the commission of atrocities which bear no very 
favorable comparison with those of the Indians 
themselves. 

It is not easy for those living in the tranquillity 
of polished life fully to conceive the depth and force 
of that unquenchable, indiscriminate hate which In- 
dian outrages can awaken in those who have suffered 
them. The chronicles of the American borders are 
filled with the deeds of men, who, having lost all by 
the merciless tomahawk, have lived for vengeance 
alone ; and such men will never cease to exist so long 
as a hostile tribe remains within striking distance of 
an American settlement. 1 Never was this hatred more 
deep or more general than on the Pennsylvania fron- 
tier at this period; and never, perhaps, did so many 
collateral causes unite to inflame it to madness. It 
was not long in finding a vent. 

Near the Susquehanna, and at no great distance 
from the town of Lancaster, was a spot known as 
the Manor of Conestoga, where a small band of In- 
dians, chiefly of Iroquois blood, had been seated since 
the first settlement of the province. William Penn 
had visited and made a treaty with them, which had 
been confirmed by several succeeding governors, so 
that the band had always remained on terms of 
friendship with the English. Yet, like other Indian 
communities in the neighborhood of the whites, they 
had dwindled in numbers and prosperity, until they 
were reduced to twenty persons, who inhabited a 

1 So promising a theme has not es- has been adopted by Dr. Bird in his 
caped the notice of novelists, and it spirited story of Nick of the Woods. 



412 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



cluster of squalid cabins, and lived by beggary and 
the sale of brooms, baskets, and. wooden ladles, made 
by the women. The men spent a small part of their 
time in hunting, and lounged away the rest in idle- 
ness. In the immediate neighborhood, they were com- 
monly regarded as harmless vagabonds ; but elsewhere, 
a more unfavorable opinion was entertained, and they 
were looked upon as secretly abetting the enemy, 
acting as spies, giving shelter to scalping-parties, and 
even aiding them in their depredations. That these 
suspicions were not wholly unfounded is shown by a 
conclusive mass of evidence, though it is probable 
that the treachery was confined to one or two in- 
dividuals. 1 The exasperated frontiersmen were not 
in a mood to discriminate, and the innocent were 
destined to share the fate of the guilty. 2 

On the east bank of the Susquehanna, some dis- 
tance above Conestoga, stood the little town of Pax- 
ton, a place which, since the French war, had occupied 
a position of extreme exposure. In the year 1755, 
the Indians had burned it to the ground, killing many 
of the inhabitants, and reducing the rest to poverty. 
It had since been rebuilt, but its tenants were the 
relatives of those who had perished, and the bitter- 
ness of the recollection was enhanced by the sense 
of their own more recent sufferings. Mention has be- 
fore been made of John Elder, the Presbyterian minister 
of this place, a man whose worth, good sense, and su- 
perior education gave him the character of counsellor 
and director throughout the neighborhood, and caused 
him to be known and esteemed even in Philadelphia. 
His position was a peculiar one. From the rough 

1 See Appendix, E. 

2 For an account of the Conestoga Indians, see Penn. Hist. Coll. 390. 



Chap. XXIV.] MATTHEW SMITH AND HIS COMPANIONS 418 



pulpit of his little church, he had often preached to 
an assembly of armed men, while scouts and senti- 
nels were stationed without, to give warning of the 
enemy's approach. 1 The men of Paxton, under the 
auspices of their pastor, formed themselves into a 
body of rangers, who became noted for their zeal 
and efficiency in defending the borders. One of their 
principal leaders was Matthew Smith, a man who 
had influence and popularity among his associates, 
and was not without pretensions to education, while 
he shared a full proportion of the general hatred 
against Indians, and suspicion against the band of 
Conestoga. 

Towards the middle of December, a scout came 
to the house of Smith, and reported that an Indian, 
known to have committed depredations in the neigh- 
borhood, had been traced to Conestoga. Smith's res- 
olution was taken at once. He called five of his 
companions, and, having armed and mounted, they 
set out for the Indian settlement. They reached it 
early in the night, and Smith, leaving his horse in 
charge of the others, crawled forward, rifle in hand, 
to reconnoitre, when he saw, or fancied he saw, a 
number of armed warriors in the cabins. Upon this 
discovery he withdrew, and rejoined his associates. 
Eelieving themselves too weak for an attack, the 
party returned to Paxton. Their blood was up, and 
they determined to extirpate the Conestogas. Mes- 

1 On one occasion, a body of In- enemy withdrew, and satisfied them- 

dians approached Paxton on Sunday, selves with burning a few houses in 

and sent forward one of their num- the neighborhood. The papers of 

ber, whom the English supposed to Mr. Elder were submitted to the 

be a friend, to reconnoitre. The writer's examination by his son, an 

spy reported that every man in the aged and esteemed citizen of Har- 

church, including the preacher, had risburg. 
a rifle at his side; upon which the 

II* 



414 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



sengers went abroad through the neighborhood; and, 
on the following day, about fifty armed and mounted 
men, chiefly from the towns of Paxton and Don- 
negal, assembled at the place agreed upon. Led by 
Matthew Smith, they took the road to Conestoga, 
where they arrived a little before daybreak, on the 
morning of the fourteenth. As they drew near, they 
discerned the light of a fire in one of the cabins, 
gleaming across the snow. Leaving their horses in 
the forest, they separated into small parties, and ad- 
vanced on several sides at once. Though they moved 
with some caution, the sound of their footsteps or 
their voices caught the ear of an Indian, and they 
saw him issue from one of the cabins, and walk 
forward in the direction of the noise. He came so 
near that one of the men fancied that he recognized 
him. " He is the one that killed my mother," he 
exclaimed with an oath ; and, firing his rifle, brought 
the Indian down. With a general shout, the furious 
ruffians burst into the cabins, and shot, stabbed, and 
hacked to death all whom thev found there. It 
happened that only six Indians were in the place, 
the rest, in accordance with their vagrant habits, 
being scattered about the neighborhood. Thus 
balked of their complete vengeance, the murderers 
seized upon what little booty they could find, set 
the cabins on fire, and departed at dawn of day. 1 

1 The above account of the mas- it had been written. The account 
sacre is chiefly drawn from the nar- is partially confirmed by incidental 
rative of Matthew Smith himself, allusions, in a letter written by 
This singular paper was published another of the Paxton men, and also 
by Mr. Redmond Conyngham, of published by Mr. Conyngham. This 
Lancaster, in the Lancaster Intelli- gentleman employed himself with 
gencer for 1843. Mr. Conyngham most unwearied diligence in collect- 
states that he procured it from the ing a voluminous mass of documents, 
son of Smith, for whose information comprising, perhaps, every thing that 



Chap. XXIV.] MASSACRE OE THE CONESTOGAS. 415 



The morning was cold and murky. Snow was 
falling, and already lay deep upon the ground ; and, 
as they urged their horses through the drifts, they 
were met by one Thomas Wright, who, struck by 
their appearance, stopped to converse with them. 
They freely told him what they had done, and, on 
his expressing surprise and horror, one of them de- 
manded if he believed in the Bible, and if the 
Scripture did not command that the heathen should 
be destroyed. 

They soon after separated, dispersing among the 
farm-houses, to procure food for themselves and their 
horses. Several rode to the house of Robert Barber, 
a prominent settler in the neighborhood, who, seeing 
the strangers stamping their feet and shaking the 
snow from their blanket coats, invited them to enter, 
and offered them refreshment. Having remained for 
a short time seated before his fire, they remounted 
and rode off through the snow-storm. A boy of the 
family, who had gone to look at the horses of the 
visitors, came in and declared that he had seen a 
tomahawk, covered with blood, hanging from each 
man's saddle, and that a small gun, belonging to one 
of the Indian children, had been leaning against the 
fence. 1 Barber at once guessed the truth, and, with 
several of his neighbors, proceeded to the Indian 
settlement, where they found the solid log cabins 
still on fire. They buried the remains of the vic- 
tims, which Barber compared in appearance to half- 
burnt logs. While they were thus engaged, the 
sheriff of Lancaster, with a party of men, arrived 

could contribute to extenuate the to time in the above-mentioned news- 
conduct of the Paxton men ; and to paper, reference will often be made, 
these papers, as published from time 1 Haz. Pa. Reg. IX. 114. 



416 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



on the spot; and the first care of the officer was to 
send through the neighborhood to collect the In- 
dians, fourteen in number, who had escaped the 
massacre. This was soon accomplished, and the un- 
happy survivors, learning the fate of their friends 
and relatives, were in great terror for their own 
lives, and earnestly begged protection. They were 
conducted to Lancaster, where, amid great excite- 
ment, they were lodged in the county jail, a strong 
stone building, which it was thought would afford 
the surest refuge. 

An express was despatched to Philadelphia with 
news of the massacre, on hearing which, the gov- 
ernor issued a proclamation, denouncing the act, and 
offering a reward for the discovery of the perpetra- 
tors. Undaunted by this measure, and enraged that 
any of their victims should have escaped, the Pax- 
ton men determined to continue the work they had 
begun. In this resolution they were confirmed by 
the prevailing impression, that an Indian known to 
have murdered the relatives of one of their number 
was among those who had received the protection of 
the magistrates at Lancaster. They sent forward a 
spy to gain intelligence, and, on his return, once 
more met at their rendezvous. On this occasion, 
their nominal leader was Lazarus Stewart, who was 
esteemed upon the borders as a brave and active 
young man, and who, there is strong reason to be- 
lieve, entertained no worse design than that of seiz- 
ing the obnoxious Indian, carrying him to Carlisle, 
and there putting him to death, in case he should 
be identified as the murderer. 1 Most of his followers, 



i Papers published by Mr. Conyngham in the Lancaster Intelligencer. 



Chap. XXIV.] ATTACK ON LANCASTER J ALL. 



417 



however, hardened amidst war and bloodshed, were 
bent on indiscriminate slaughter ; a purpose which 
they concealed from their more moderate associates. 

Early on the twenty-seventh of December, the 
party, about fifty in number, left Paxton on their 
desperate errand. Elder had used all his influence to 
divert them from their design; and now, seeing them 
depart, he mounted his horse, overtook them, and 
addressed them with the most earnest remonstrance. 
Einding his words unheeded, he drew up his horse 
across the narrow road in front, and charged them, 
on his authority as their pastor, to return. Upon 
this, Matthew Smith rode forward, and, pointing his 
rifle at the breast of Elder's horse, threatened to fire 
unless he drew him aside, and gave room to pass. 
The clergyman was forced to comply, and the party 
proceeded. 1 

At about three o'clock in the afternoon, the riot- 
ers, armed with rifle, knife, and tomahawk, rode at 
a gallop into Lancaster, turned their horses into the 
yard of the public house, ran to the jail, burst open 
the door, and rushed tumultuously in. The fourteen 
Indians were in a small yard adjacent to the build- 
ing, surrounded by high stone walls. Hearing the 
shouts of the mob, and startled by the apparition 
of armed men in the doorway, two or three of them 
snatched up billets of wood in self-defence. What- 
ever may have been the purpose of the Paxton men, 
this show of resistance banished every thought of 
forbearance; and the foremost, rushing forward, fired 
their rifles among the crowd of Indians. In a mo- 
ment more, the yard was filled with ruffians, shout- 

1 This anecdote was told to the writer by the son of Mr. Elder, and is 
also related by Mr. Conyngham. 

53 



418 



THE PAXTOX MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



ing, cursing, and firing upon the cowering wretches, 
holding the muzzles of their pieces, in some in- 
stances, so near their victims' heads that the brains 
were scattered by the explosion. The work was soon 
finished. The bodies of men, women, and children, 
mangled with outrageous brutality, lay scattered about 
the yard, and the murderers were gone. 1 

TThen the first alarm was given, the magistrates 
were in the church, attending the Christmas service, 
which had been postponed on the twenty-fifth. The 
door was flung open, and the voice of a man half 
breathless was heard hi broken exclamations, " Mur- 
der — the jail — the Paxton Boys — the Indians." 

The assembly broke up in disorder, and Ship- 
pen, the principal magistrate, hastened towards the 
scene of riot; but, before he could reach it, all was 
finished, and the murderers were galloping in a body 
from the town. 2 The sheriff and the coroner had 



1 Deposition of Felix Donoliy, 
keeper of Lancaster jail. Declara- 
tion of Lazarus Stewart, published 
by Mr. Conyngham. Rupp, Hist, of 
York and Lancaster Counties, 356. 
Heckewelder, Nar. of Moravian Mis- 
sions, 79. See Appendix, E. 

Soon after the massacre, Franklin 
published an account of it at Phila- 
delphia, which, being intended to 
strengthen the hands of government 
by exciting a popular sentiment 
against the rioters, is more rhetor- 
ical than accurate. The following 
is his account of the consummation 
of the act : — 

" When the poor wretches saw 
they had no protection nigh, nor 
could possibly escape, they divided 
into their little families, the children 
clinging to the parents ; they fell on 
their knees, protested their inno- 
cence, declared their love to the 
English, and that, in their whole 



lives, they had never done them in- 
jury ; and in this posture they all re- 
ceived the hatchet! " 

This is a pure embellishment of 
the fancy. The only persons pres- 
ent were the jailer and the rioters 
themselves, who unite in testifying 
that the Indians died with the un- 
flinching stoicism which their race 
usually exhibit under such circum- 
stances : and indeed, so sudden was 
the act, that there was no time for 
enacting the scene described by 
Franklin. 

2 Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Edward Shippen to Governor Penn. 

t; Lancaster, 27th Dec, 1763, P. M. 

" Honoured Sir : — 

"I am to acquaint your Honour 
that between two and three of the 
Clock this afternoon, upwards of a 
hundred armed men from the West- 
ward rode very fast into Town, 



Chap. XXIV.] MASSACRE IN LANCASTER JAIL. 



419 



mingled among the rioters, aiding and abetting them, 
as their enemies affirm, but, according to their own 
statement, vainly risking their lives to restore order. 1 
A company of Highland soldiers, on their way from 
Fort Pitt to Philadelphia, were encamped near the 
town. Their commander, Captain Robertson, after- 
wards declared that he pnt himself in the way of 
the magistrates, expecting that they would call upon 
him to aid the civil authority; while, on the con- 
trary, several of the inhabitants testify, that, when 
they urged him to interfere, he replied, with an oath, 
that his men had suffered enough from Indians 
already, and should not stir hand or foot to save 
them. Be this as it may, it seems certain that 
neither soldiers nor magistrates, with their best exer- 
tions, could have availed to prevent the massacre ;. 
for so well was the plan concerted, that, within ten 
or twelve minutes after the alarm, the Indians were 
dead, and the murderers mounted to depart. 

The people crowded into the jail yard to gaze 
upon the miserable spectacle ; and, when their curios- 
ity was sated, the bodies were gathered together, and 
buried not far from the town, where they reposed 
three quarters of a century, until, at length, the bones 



turned their Horses into Mr. Slough's 
(an Innkeeper's) yard, and proceeded 
with the greatest precipitation to the 
Work-House, stove open the door 
and killed all the Indians, and then 
took to their Horses and rode off : all 
then business was done, & they 
were returning to their Horses be- 
fore I could get half waj down to 
the Work-House. The Sheriff and 
Coroner however, and several others, 
got down as soon as the rioters, but 
could not prevail vrith them to stop 
their hands. Some people say they 
heard them declare they would pro- 



ceed to the Province Island, & de- 
stroy the Indians there." 

i Extract from a MS. Letter — 
John Hay, the sheriff, to Governor 
Perm. 

{ i They in a body left the town 
without offering any insults to the 
Inhabitants, & without putting it in 
the power of any one to take or mo- 
lest any of them without danger of 
life to the person attempting it ; of 
which both myself and the Coroner, 
by our opposition, were in great 
danger." 



420 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



were disinterred in preparing the foundation for a 
railroad. 

The tidings of this massacre threw the country 
into a ferment. Various opinions were expressed ; but, 
in the border counties, even the most sober and 
moderate regarded it, not as a wilful and deliberate 
crime, but as the mistaken act of rash men, fevered 
to desperation by wrongs and sufferings. 1 

When the news reached Philadelphia, a clamorous 
outcry rose from the Quakers, who could find no words 
to express their horror and detestation. They assailed, 
not the rioters only, but the whole Presbyterian sect, 
with a tempest of abuse, none the less virulent for 
being vented in the name of philanthropy and religion. 
The governor again issued a proclamation, offering 
rewards for the detection and arrest of the murderers ; 
but the latter, far from shrinking into concealment, 
proclaimed their deed in the face of day, boasted the 
achievement, and defended it by reason and Scripture. 
So great was the excitement in the frontier counties, 
and so deep the sympathy with the rioters, that to 
arrest them would have required the employment of 
a strong military force, an experiment far too dan- 



i Extract from a Letter — Rev. Mr. 
Elder to Colonel Burd. 

" Paxton, 1764. 

"Lazarus Stewart is still threat- 
ened by the Philadelphia party; he 
and his friends talk of leaving — if 
they do, the province will lose some 
of their truest friends, and that by 
the faults of others, not their own ; for 
if any cruelty was practised on the In- 
dians at Conestogue or at Lancaster, it 
was not by his, or their hands. There 
is a great reason to believe that much 
injustice has been done to all con- 
cerned. In the contrariness of ac- 



counts, we must infer that much rests 
for support on the imagination, or in- 
terest of the witness. The characters 
of Stewart and his friends were well 
established. Ruffians nor brutal they 
were not ; humane, liberal and moral, 
nay, religious. It is evidently not the 
wish of the party to give Stewart a fair 
hearing. All he desires, is to be put 
on trial, at Lancaster, near the scenes 
of the horrible butcheries, committed 
by the Indians at Tulpehocken, &c, 
when he can have the testimony of 
the Scouts or Rangers, men whose 
services can never be sufficiently re- 
warded." 



Chap. XXIV.] 



LAZARUS STEWART. 



421 



gerous to be tried. Nothing of the kind was attempt- 
ed until nearly eight years afterwards, when Lazarus 
Stewart was apprehended on the charge of murdering 
the Indians of Conestoga. Learning that his trial 
was to take place, not in the county where the act 
was committed, but in Philadelphia, and thence judg- 
ing that his condemnation was certain, he broke jail 
and escaped. Having written a declaration to justify 
his conduct, he called his old associates around him, 
set the provincial government of Pennsylvania at de- 
fiance, and withdrew to Wyoming with his band. 
Here he joined the settlers recently arrived from 
Connecticut, and thenceforth played a conspicuous 
part in the eventful history of that remarkable 
spot. 1 

After the massacre at Conestoga, the excitement 
in the frontier counties, far from subsiding, increased 
in violence daily, and various circumstances conspired 
to inflame it. The principal of these was the course 
pursued by the provincial government towards the 
Christian Indians attached to the Moravian missions. 
Many years had elapsed since the Moravians began 
the task of converting the Indians of Pennsylvania, 
and their steadfast energy and regulated zeal had 
been crowned with success. They had increased in 
both temporal and spiritual prosperity, and several 



i Papers published by Mr. Conyng- 
ham. 

Extract from the Declaration of 
Lazarus Stewart. 

" What I have done, was done for 
the security of hundreds of settlers 
on the frontiers. The blood of a 
thousand of my fellow-creatures called 
for vengeance. As a Ranger, I sought 
the post of danger, and now you ask 



my life. Let me be tried where 
prejudice has not prejudged my case. 
Let my brave Rangers, who have 
stemmed the blast nobly, and never 
flinched ; let them have an equitable 
trial; they were my friends in the 
hour of danger — to desert them now 
were cowardice ! What remains is 
to leave our cause with our God, and 
our guns." 

J J 



422 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



thriving settlements of their converts had sprung up 
in the valley of the Lehigh, when the opening of the 
French war, in 1755, involved them in unlooked-for 
calamities. These unhappy neutrals, between the 
French and Indians on the one side, and the English 
on the other, excited the enmity of both, and while 
from the west they were threatened by the hatchets 
of their own countrymen, they were menaced on the 
east by the no less formidable vengeance of the white 
settlers, who, in their distress and terror, never doubt- 
ed that the Moravian converts were in league with 
the enemy. The popular rage against them at length 
grew so furious, that their destruction was resolved 
upon. The settlers assembled and advanced against 
the Moravian community of Gnadenhutten ; but the 
French and Indians gained the first blow, and, de- 
scending upon the doomed settlement, utterly destroyed 
it. This disaster, deplorable as it was in itself, proved 
the safety of the other Moravian settlements, by 
making it fully apparent that their inhabitants were 
not in league with the enemy. They were suffered 
to remain unmolested for several years ; but with the 
murders that ushered in Pontiac's war, in 1763, the 
former suspicion revived, and the expediency of de- 
stroying the Moravian Indians was openly debated. 
Towards the end of the summer, several outrages 
were committed upon the settlers in the neighbor- 
hood, and the Moravian Indians were loudly accused 
of taking part in them. These charges were never 
fully confuted ; and, taking into view the harsh treat- 
ment which the converts had always experienced from 
the whites, it is highly probable that some of them 
were disposed to sympathize with their heathen coun- 
trymen, who are known to have courted their alii- 



Chap. XXIV.] 



THE MORAVIAN CONVERTS. 



423 



ance. The Moravians had, however, excited in their 
converts a high degree of religions enthusiasm, which, 
directed as it was by the teachings of the missiona- 
ries, went farther than any thing else could have 
done to soften their national prejudices, and wean 
them from their warlike habits. 

About three months before the massacre at Cones- 
toga, a party of drunken rangers, fired by the general 
resentment against the Moravian Indians, murdered 
several of them, both men and women, whom they 
found sleeping in a barn. Not long after, the same 
party of rangers were, in their turn, surprised and 
killed, some peaceful settlers of the neighborhood 
sharing their fate. This act was at once ascribed, 
justly or unjustly, to the vengeance of the converted 
Indians, relatives of the murdered; and the frontier 
people, who, like the Paxton men, were chiefly Scotch 
and Irish Presbyterians, resolved that the objects of 
their suspicion should live no longer. At this time, 
the Moravian converts consisted of two communities, 
those of Nain and Wecquetank, near the Lehigh, and 
to these may be added a third, at Wyalusing, near 
Wyoming. The latter, from its distant situation, was, 
for the present, safe ; but the two former were in im- 
minent peril, and the inhabitants, in mortal terror for 
their lives, stood day and night on the watch. 

At length, about the tenth of October, a gang of 
armed men approached Wecquetank, and encamped in 
the woods, at no great distance. They intended to 
make their attack under favor of the darkness; but, 
before evening, a storm, which to the missionaries 
seemed providential, descended with such violence, 
that the fires of the hostile camp were extinguished 



424 



THE PAXTON MEN. 



[Chap. XXIV. 



in a moment, the ammunition of the men wet, and 
the plan defeated. 1 

After so narrow an escape, it was apparent that 
flight was the only resource. The terrified congrega- 
tion of Wecquetank hroke up on the following day, 
and, under the charge of their missionary, Bernard 
Gruhe, removed to the Moravian town of Nazareth, 
where it was hoped they might remain in safety. 2 

In the mean time, the charges against the Moravian 
converts had been laid before the provincial Assembly, 
and, to secure the safety of the frontier people, it was 
judged expedient to disarm the suspected Indians, 
and remove them to a part of the province where it 
would be beyond their power to do mischief. 3 The 
motion was passed in the Assembly with little dissent, 
the Quakers supporting it from regard to the safety 
of the Indians, and their opponents from regard to 
the safety of the whites. The order for removal 
reached its destination on the sixth of November, 
and the Indians, reluctantly yielding up their arms, 
prepared for departure. When a sermon had been 
preached before the united congregations, and a hymn 
sung, in which all took part, the unfortunate exiles 
set out on their forlorn pilgrimage; the aged, the 
young, the sick, and the blind, borne in wagons, while 
the rest journeyed on foot. 4 Their total number, in- 
cluding the band from Wyalusing, which joined 
them after they reached Philadelphia, was about a 
hundred and forty. At every village and hamlet 

l Loskiel, Hist. Moravian Mis- 3 Votes of Assembly, V. 284. 

sions, Part II. 211. 4 Loskiel, Hist. Moravian Mis- 

a MS. Letter — Bernard Grube to sions, Part II. 214. Heckewelder, 

Governor Hamilton, Oct. 13. Narrative of Missions, 75. 



Chap. XXIV.] THE MORAVIAN CONVERTS. 



425 



which they passed on their way, they were greeted 
with threats and curses ; nor did the temper of the 
people improve as they advanced, for, when they came 
to Germantown, the mob could scarcely be restrained 
from attacking them. On reaching Philadelphia, they 
were conducted, amidst the yells and hootings of the 
rabble, to the barracks, which had been intended to 
receive them; but the soldiers, who outdid the mob 
in their hatred of Indians, refused to admit them, and 
set the orders of the governor at defiance. From ten 
o'clock in the morning until three in the afternoon, 
the persecuted exiles remained drawn up in the square, 
before the barracks, surrounded by a multitude who 
never ceased to abuse and threaten them; but wher- 
ever the broad hat of a Quaker was seen in the 
crowd, there they felt the assurance of a friend — 
a friend, who, both out of love for them, and aver- 
sion to their enemies, would spare no efforts hi their 
behalf. The soldiers continued refractory, and the 
Indians were at length ordered to proceed. As they 
moved down the street, shrinking together in their 
terror, the mob about them ffrew so angrv and clam- 
orous, that to their missionaries they seemed like 
a flock of sheep in the midst of howling wolves. 1 A 
body-guard of Quakers gathered around, protecting 
them from the crowd, and speaking words of sym- 
pathy and encouragement. Thus they proceeded to 
Province Island, below the city, where they were 
lodged in waste buildings, prepared in haste for their 
reception, and where the Quakers still attended them, 
with every office of kindness and friendship. 



1 LosMel, Part II. 216. 

54 j j* 



CHAPTER XXV. 



THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. 

The Conestoga murders did not take place until 
some weeks after the removal of the Moravian con- 
verts to Philadelphia, and the rioters, as they rode, 
flushed with success, out of Lancaster, after the 
achievement of their exploit, were heard to boast 
that they would soon visit the city and finish their 
work, by killing the Indians whom it had taken un- 
der its protection. It was soon but too apparent 
that this design was seriously entertained by the peo- 
ple of the frontier. They had tasted blood, and they 
craved more. It seemed to them intolerable, that 
while their sufferings were unheeded, and their wound- 
ed and destitute friends uncared for, they should be 
taxed to support those whom they regarded as authors 
of their calamities, or, in their own angry words, " to 
maintain them through the winter, that they may 
scalp and butcher us in the spring." 1 In their blind 
rage, they would not see that the Moravian Indians 

i Remonstrance of the Frontier brethren on the frontiers are almost 

People to the Governor and Assem- destitute of the necessaries of life, 

bly. See Votes of Assembly, V. 313. and are neglected by the public, is 

The " Declaration," which accom- sufficient to make us mad with rage, 

panied the " Remonstrance," contains and tempt us to do what nothing but 

the following passage : " To protect the most violent necessity can vin- 

and maintain these Indians at the dicate." 

public expense, while our suffering See Appendix, E. 



Chap. XXV.] EXCITEMENT OE THE BORDERERS. 427 

had been removed to Philadelphia, in part, at least, 
with a view to the safety of the borders. To their 
enmity against Indians was added a resentment, 
scarcely less vehement, against the Quakers, whose 
sectarian principles they hated and despised. They 
complained, too, of political grievances, alleging that 
the five frontier counties were inadequately repre- 
sented in the Assembly, and that from thence arose 
the undue influence of the Quakers in the councils 
of the province. 

The excited people soon began to assemble at tav- 
erns and other places of resort, recounting their 
grievances, real or imaginary, relating frightful stories 
of Indian atrocities, and launching fierce invectives 
against the Quakers. 1 Political agitators harangued 
them on their violated rights, self-constituted preachers 
urged the duty of destroying the heathen, forgetting 
that the Moravian Indians were Christians, and their 
exasperated hearers were soon ripe for any rash 
attempt. They resolved to assemble and march in 
arms to Philadelphia. On a former occasion, they 
had sent thither a wagon laden with the mangled 
corpses of their friends and relatives, who had fallen 
by Indian butchery; but the hideous spectacle had 
failed of the intended effect, and the Assembly had 
still turned a deaf ear to their entreaties for more 
effective aid. 2 Appeals to sympathy had been thrown 



i MS. Elder Papers. 

The following verses are extracted 
from a poem, published at Philadel- 
phia by a partisan of the Paxton men, 
entitled 

" The Cloven Foot discovered. 
" Go on, good Christians, never spare 
To give your Indians Clothes to wear ; 
Send 'em good Beef, and Pork, and Bread, 
Guns, Powder, Flints, and Store of Lead, 
To Shoot your Neighbours through the Head j 



Devoutly then, make Affirmation, 

You're Friends to George and British Nation ; 

Encourage ev'ry friendly Savage, 

To murder, burn, destroy, and ravage ; 

Fathers and Mothers here maintain, 

Whose Sons add Numbers to the slain, 

Of Scotch and Irish let them kill 

As many Thousands as they will, 

That you may lord it o'er the Land, 

And have the whole and sole command." 

2 This incident occurred during 
the French war, and is thus described 



428 THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV. 

away, and they now resolved to try the efficacy of 
their rifles. 

They mustered under their popular leaders, promi- 
nent among whom was Matthew Smith, who had led 
the murderers at Conestoga, and, towards the end of 
January, took the road to Philadelphia, in force va- 
riously estimated at from five hundred to fifteen 
hundred men. Their avowed purpose was to kill the 
Moravian Indians ; but what vague designs they may 
have entertained to change the government, and eject 
the Quakers from a share in it, must remain a mat- 
ter of uncertainty. Feeble as they were in numbers, 
their enterprise was not so hopeless as might at first 
appear, for they counted on aid from the mob of the 
city, while a numerous party, comprising the mem- 
bers of the Presbyterian sect, were expected to give 
them secret support, or, at least, to stand neutral in 
the quarrel. The Quakers, who were their most de- 
termined enemies, could not take arms against them 
without glaring violation of the principles which they 
had so often and loudly professed; and even should 
they thus fly hi the face of conscience, the warlike 
borderers would stand in little fear of such unprac- 
tised warriors. They pursued their march in high 
confidence, applauded by the inhabitants, and hourly 
increasing in numbers. 

Startling rumors of the danger soon reached Phil- 
adelphia, spreading alarm among the citizens. The 

by a Quaker eye-witness : " Some people following — cursing the In- 

of the dead bodies were brought to dians, and also the Quakers, because 

Philadelphia in a wagon, in the time they would not join in war for their 

of the General Meeting of Friends destruction. The sight of the dead 

there in December, with intent to bodies, and the outcry of the people, 

animate the people to unite in prep- were very afflicting and shocking." 

arations for war on the Indians. They — Watson, Annals of Phil. 449, 

were carried along the streets — many (Phil. 1830.) 



Chap.XXV.1 ALAEM OE THE QUAKERS. 



429 



Quakers, especially, had reason to fear, both for 
themselves and for the Indians, of whom it was their 
pride to he esteemed the champions. These pacific 
sectaries found themselves in a new and embarrassing 
position, for hitherto they had been able to assert 
their principles at no great risk to person or prop- 
erty. The appalling tempest, which, during the 
French war, had desolated the rest of the province, 
had been unfelt near Philadelphia ; and while the in- 
habitants to the westward had been slaughtered by 
hundreds, scarcely a Quaker had been hurt. Under 
these circumstances, the aversion of the sect to war- 
like measures had been a fruitful source of difficulty. 
It is true that, on several occasions, they had voted 
supplies for the public defence; but unwilling to 
place on record such a testimony of inconsistency, 
they had granted the .money, not for the avowed 
purpose of raising and arming soldiers, but under the 
title of a gift to the crown. 1 They were now to be 
deprived of even this poor subterfuge, and subjected 
to the dilemma of suffering their friends to be slain 
and themselves to be plundered, or openly appealing 
to arms. 

Their embarrassment was increased by the exagger- 
ated ideas which prevailed among the ignorant and 
timorous respecting the size and strength of the bor- 
derers, their ferocity of temper, and their wonderful 
skill as marksmen. Quiet citizens, whose knowledge 
was confined to the narrow limits of their firesides 
and shops, listened horror-stricken to these reports, 
the prevalence of which is somewhat surprising, when 
it is considered that, at the present day, the district 



1 See Gordon, Hist. Perm. Chaps. XII.-XVIII. 



430 THE KIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV- 

whence the dreaded rioters came may be reached from 
Philadelphia within a few hours. 

Tidings of the massacre in Lancaster jail had ar- 
rived at Philadelphia on the twenty-ninth of Decem- 
ber, and with them came the rumor that numerous 
armed mobs were already on their march to the city. 
Terror and confusion were universal; and, as the 
place was defenceless, no other expedient suggested 
itself than the pitiful one of removing the objects of 
popular resentment beyond reach of danger. Boats 
were sent to Province Island, and the Indians ordered 
to embark and proceed with all haste down the river ; 
but, the rumor proving groundless, a messenger was 
despatched to recall the fugitives. 1 The assurance 
that, for a time at least, the city was safe, restored 
some measure of tranquillity ; but, as intelligence 
of an alarming kind came in daily from the coun- 
try, Governor Penn sent to General Gage an ear- 
nest request for a detachment of regulars to repel 
the rioters; 2 and, in the interval, means to avert 
the threatened danger were eagerly sought. A 
proposal was laid before the Assembly to embark 
the Indians and send them to England; 3 but the 
scheme was judged inexpedient, and another, of equal 
weakness, adopted in its place. It was determined 
to send the refugees to New York, and place them 
under the protection of the Indian superintendent, 
Sir William Johnson; a plan as hastily executed as 
timidly conceived. 4 At midnight, on the fourth of 



1 Loskiel, Part II. 218. 

2 MS. Letter — Penn to Gage, 
Dec. 31. 

3 Votes of Assembly, V. 293. 

4 Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Governor Penn to Governor Golden. 



" Philadelphia, 5th January, 1764. 

" Satisfied of the advantages aris- 
ing from this measure, I have sent 
them thro' Jersey and your Govern- 
ment to Sir W. Johnson, & desire 



Chap. XXV.] THE CONVERTS SEXT TO NEW YORK. 



431 



January, no measures having been taken to gain the 
consent of either the government of New York or 
Johnson himself, the Indians were ordered to leave 
the island, and proceed to the city, where they ar- 
rived a little before daybreak, passing in mournful 
procession, thinly clad and shivering with cold, 
through the silent streets. The Moravian Brethren 
supplied them with food, and Fox, the commis- 
sary, with great humanity, distributed blankets 
among them. Before they could resume their prog- 
ress, the city was astir; and as they passed the 
suburbs, they were pelted and hooted at by the 
mob. Captain Robertson's Highlanders, who had 
just arrived from Lancaster, were ordered to escort 
them. These soldiers, who had their own reasons 
for hating Indians, treated them at first with no less 
insolence and rudeness than the populace; but at 
length, overcome by the meekness and patience of 
the sufferers, they changed their conduct, and as- 
sumed a tone of sympathy and kindness. 1 

Thus escorted, the refugees pursued their dreary 
progress through the country, greeted on all sides 
by the threats and curses of the people. When 
they reached Trenton, they were received by Apty, 
the commissary at that place, under whose charge 
they continued their journey towards Amboy, where 
several small vessels had been provided to carry 
them to New York. Arriving at Amboy, however, 
Apty, to his great surprise, received a letter from 



you will favour them with your pro- 
tection and countenance, & give them 
the proper passes for their journey to 
Sir William's Seat. 

"I have recommended it, in the 
most pressing terms, to the Assem- 



bly, to form a Bill that shall enable 
me to apprehend these seditious and 
barbarous Murderers, & to quell the 
like insurrections for the future." 

i Loskiel, Part II. 220. Heckewel- 
der, Nar. 81. 



432 THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV. 

Governor Golden of New York, forbidding him to 
bring the Indians within the territories of that 
province. A second letter, from General Gage to 
Captain Robertson, conveyed orders to prevent their 
advance; and a third, to the owners of the vessels, 
threatened heavy penalties if they should bring the 
Indians to the city. 1 The charges of treachery 
against the Moravian Indians, the burden their pres- 
ence would occasion, and the danger of popular dis- 
turbance, were the chief causes which induced the 
government of New York to adopt this course ; a 
course that might have been foreseen from the 
beginning. 2 

Thus disappointed in their hopes of escape, the 
hapless Indians remained several days lodged in the 
barracks at Amboy, where they passed much of their 
time in religious services. A message, however, soon 
came from the Governor of New Jersey, requiring 
them to leave that province ; and they were com- 
pelled reluctantly to retrace their steps to Philadel- 
phia. A detachment of a hundred and seventy 
soldiers had arrived, sent by General Gage, in com- 



i Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Thomas Apty to Governor Penn. 

" Sir: — 

" Agreeable to your Honour's or- 
ders, I passed on through the Prov- 
ince of New Jersey, in order to take 
the Indians under my care into New 
York ; but no sooner was I ready to 
move from Amboy with the Indians 
under my care, than I was greatly 
surpriz'd & embarass'd with express 
orders from the Governor of New 
York sent to Amboy, strictly forbid- 
ding the bringing of these poor In- 
dians into his Province, & charging 
all his ferrymen not to let them pass. 



I have wrote to the Governor of 
this Province, acquainting him with 
what has happened, & begging his 
protection for the Indians, till I can 
receive further orders from your 
Honour ; which I hope to receive by 
the return of the express, & must 
wait here with the Indians under my 
care, till your Honour shall be 
pleased to dispose of them in such 
manner as your wisdom shall think 
fit." 

2 Letters to Governor Penn from 
General Gage, Governor Franklin 
of New Jersey, and Governor Col- 
den of New York. See Votes of 
Assembly, V. 300-302. 



Chap. XXV.] QUAKEES AND PEESBYTEEIANS. 



433 



pliance with the request of Governor Perm ; and 
under the protection of these troops, the exiles 
began their backward journey. On the twenty- 
fourth of January, they reached Philadelphia, where 
they were lodged at the barracks within the city, 
the soldiers, forgetful of former prejudice, no longer 
refusing them entrance. 

The return of the Indians, banishing the hope of 
repose with which the citizens had nattered them- 
selves, and the tidings of danger coming in quick 
succession from the country, made it apparent that 
no time must be lost; and the Assembly, laying 
aside their scruples, unanimously passed a bill pro- 
viding means for the public defence. The pacific 
city displayed a scene of unwonted bustle. All who 
held property, or regarded the public order, might, 
it should seem, have felt a deep interest in the 
issue : yet a numerous and highly respectable class 
stood idle spectators, or showed, at best, but a luke- 
warm zeal. These were the Presbyterians, who had 
naturally felt a strong sympathy with their suffering 
brethren of the frontier. To this they added a deep 
bitterness against the Quakers, greatly increased by 
a charge, most uncharitably brought by the latter 
against the whole Presbyterian sect, of conniving at 
and abetting the murders at Conestoga and Lan- 
caster. They regarded the Paxton men as the vic- 
tims of Quaker neglect and injustice, and showed a 
strong disposition to palliate, or excuse altogether, the 
violence of which they had been guilty. Many of 
them, indeed, were secretly inclined to favor the de- 
signs of the advancing rioters; hoping that by their 
means the public grievances would be redressed, 

55 KK 



434 THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV. 



the Quaker faction put down, and the social and 
political balance of the state restored. 1 

Whatever may have been the sentiments of the 
Presbyterians, and of the city mob, the rest of the 
inhabitants bestirred themselves for defence with all 
the alacrity of fright. The Quakers were especially 
conspicuous for their zeal. Nothing more was heard 
of the duty of non-resistance. The city was ran- 
sacked for arms, and the Assembly passed a vote, 
extending the English riot act to the province, the 
Quaker members heartily concurring in the measure. 
Franklin, whose energy and practical talents made 
his services invaluable, was the moving spirit of the 
day ; and under his auspices, the citizens were 
formed into military companies, six of which were 
of infantry, one of artillery, and two of horse. 
Besides this force, several thousands of the inhab- 
itants, including many Quakers, held themselves 
ready to appear in arms at a moment's notice. 2 

These preparations were yet incomplete, when, on 
the fourth of February, couriers came in with the 
announcement that the Paxton men, horse and foot, 
were already within a short distance of the city. 
Proclamation was made through the streets, and the 
people called to arms. A mob of citizen soldiers 
repaired in great excitement to the barracks, where 
the Indians were lodged, under protection of the 
handful of regulars. Here the crowd remained all 
night, drenched with the rain, and in a dismal 
condition. 3 

l For indications of the state of 2 Gordon, Hist. Penn. 406. Penn. 
feeling among the Presbyterians, see Gaz. No. 1833. 
the numerous partisan pamphlets of 3 Haz. Pa. Reg. XII. 10. 
the day. See also Appendix, E. 



Chap. XXV.] 



EXCITEMENT IX THE CITY. 



435 



On the following clay, Sunday, a barricade was 
thrown up across the great square enclosed by the 
barracks, and eight cannon, to which four more 
were afterwards added, were planted to sweep the 
adjacent streets. These pieces were discharged, to 
convey to the rioters an idea of the reception pre- 
pared for them ; but whatever effect the explosion 
may have produced on the ears for which it was 
intended, the new and appalling sounds struck the 
Indians in the barracks with speechless terror. 1 
While the city assumed this martial attitude, its 
rulers thought proper to adopt the safer, though less 
glorious course of conciliation ; and a deputation of 
clergymen was sent out to meet the rioters, and 
pacify them by reason and Scripture. Towards night, 
as all remained quiet, and nothing was heard from 
the enemy, the turmoil began to subside, the citizen 
soldiers dispersed, the regulars withdrew into quar- 
ters, and the city recovered something of the ordi- 
nary repose of a Sabbath evening. 

Through the early part of the night, the quiet 
was undisturbed ; but at about two o'clock in the 
morning, the clang of bells and the rolling of drums 
startled the people from their slumbers, and count- 
less voices from the street echoed the alarm. Im- 
mediately, in obedience to the previous day's orders, 
lighted candles were placed in every window, till 
the streets seemed illuminated for a festival. The 
citizen soldiers, with more zeal than regularity, mus- 
tered under then officers. The governor, dreading 
an irruption of the mob, repaired to the house of 
Franklin, and the city was filled with the jangling 
of bells, and the no less vehement clamor of 



i Loskiel, Part II. 223 



436 THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV 

tongues. A great multitude gathered before the 
barracks, where it was supposed the attack would 
be made; and among them was seen many a 
Quaker, with musket in hand. Some of the more 
rigid of the sect, unwilling to take arms with their 
less scrupulous brethren, went into the barracks to 
console and reassure the Indians ; who, however, 
showed much more composure than their comforters, 
and sat waiting the result with invincible calmness. 
Several hours of suspense and excitement passed, 
when it was recollected, that though the other fer- 
ries of the Schuylkill had been secured, a crossing 
place, known as the Swedes' Ford, had been left 
open, and a party at once set out to correct this 
unlucky oversight. 1 Scarcely were they gone, when 
a cry rose among the crowd before the barracks, 
and a general exclamation was heard that the Pax- 
ton Boys were coming. In fact, a band of horse- 
men was seen advancing up Second Street, The 
people crowded to get out of the way; the troops 
fell into order; a cannon was pointed full at the 
horsemen, and the gunner was about to apply the 
match, when a man ran out from the crowd, and 
covered the touchhole with his hat. The cry of a 
false alarm was heard, and it was soon apparent to 
all that the supposed Paxton Boys were a troop of 
German butchers and carters, who had come to aid 
in defence of the city, and had nearly paid dear for 
their patriotic zeal. 2 

1 Historical Account of the Late Sparks, Writings of Franklin, VII. 
Disturbances, 4. 293. 

2 Haz. Pa. Reg. XII. 11. Me- The best remaining account of 
raoirs of a Life passed chiefly in these riots will be found under the 
Pennsylvania, 39. Heckewelder, first authority cited above. It con- 
Nar. 85. Loskiel, Part II. 223. sists of a long letter, written in a 



Chap. XXV.] PAXTON MEN AT GERMANTOWX. 437 

The tumult of this alarm was hardly over, when 
a fresh commotion was raised by the return of the 
men who had gone to secure the Swedes' Ford, and 
who now reported that they had been too late; that 
the rioters had crossed the river, and were already 
at Germantown. Those who had crossed proved to 
be the van of the Paxton men, two hundred in 
number, and commanded by Matthew Smith; who, 
learning what welcome was prepared for them, 
thought it prudent to remain quietly at German- 
town, instead of marching forward to certain de- 
struction. In the afternoon, many of the inhabitants 
gathered courage, and went out to visit them. They 
found nothing very extraordinary in the aspect of 
the rioters, who, in the words of a writer of the 
day, were "a set of fellows in blanket coats and 
moccasons, like our Indian traders or back country 
wagoners, all armed with rifles and tomahawks, and 
some with pistols stuck in their belts." 1 They re- 
ceived their visitors with the courtesy which might 
doubtless be ascribed in great measure to their 
knowledge of the warlike preparations within the 
city; and the report made by the adventurers, on 
their return, greatly tended to allay the general 
excitement. 

The alarm, however, was again raised on the 



very animated strain, by a Quaker 
to his friend, containing a detailed 
account of what passed in the city 
from the first alarm of the rioters to 
the conclusion of the affair. The 
writer, though a Quaker, is free 
from the prejudices of his sect, nor 
does he hesitate to notice the incon- 
sistency of his brethren appearing* 
in arms. See Appendix, E. 



The scene before the barracks, 
and the narrow escape of the Ger- 
man butchers, was made the subject 
of several poems and farces, written 
by members of the Presbyterian 
faction, to turn their opponents into 
ridicule ; for which, indeed, the sub- 
ject offered tempting' facilities. 

i Haz. Pa. Reg. XII. 11. 



KK* 



438 THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV. 

following day, and the cry to arms once more 
resounded through the city of peace. The citizen 
soldiers mustered with exemplary despatch; hut their 
ardor was quenched by a storm of rain, which 
drove them all under shelter. A neighboring Quaker 
meeting-house happened to be open, and a company 
of the volunteers betook themselves in haste to this 
convenient asylum. Forthwith, the place was bris- 
tling with bayonets, and the walls which had listened 
so often to angry denunciations against war now 
echoed the clang of weapons — an unspeakable scan- 
dal to the elders of the sect, and an occasion of 
pitiless satire to the Presbyterians. 1 

This alarm proving groundless, like all the others, 
the governor and council proceeded to the execution 
of a design which they had formed the day before. 
They had resolved, in pursuance of their timid 
policy, to open negotiations with the rioters, and 
persuade them, if possible, to depart peacefully. 
Many of the citizens protested against the plan, and 
the soldiers volunteered to attack the Paxton men; 
but none were so vehement as the Quakers, who 
held that fire and steel were the only welcome that 
should be accorded to such violators of the public 
peace, and audacious blasphemers of the society of 
Friends. 2 The plan was nevertheless sustained, and 
Franklin, with three other citizens of character and 
influence, set out for Gemiantown. The rioters re- 
ceived them with marks of respect, and, after a long 
conference, the leaders of the mob were so far 

1 Haz. Pa. Reg. XII. 12. the Quakers, in their elaborate replies 

2 This statement is made in " The to these publications, do not attempt 
Quaker Unmasked," and other Pres- to deny the fact. 

byterian pamphlets of the day ; and 



Chap. XXV.] 



TREATY WITH THE RIOTERS. 



439 



wrought upon as to give over their hostile designs, 
the futility of which was now sufficiently apparent. 1 
An assurance was given, on the part of the govern- 
ment, that their complaints should have a hearing, 
and safety was guarantied to those of their number 
who should enter the city as their representatives 
and advocates. For this purpose, Matthew Smith 
and James Gibson were appointed by the popular 
voice, and two papers, a Declaration and a Remon- 
strance, were drawn up, addressed to the governor 
and Assembly. With this assurance that their cause 
should be represented, the rioters signified their will- 
ingness to return home, glad to escape so easily 
from an affair which had begun to threaten worse 
consequences. 

Towards evening, the commissioners, returning to 
the city, reported the success of their negotiations. 
Upon this, the citizen soldiers were convened in front 
of the court house, and addressed by a member of the 
council. He thanked them for their zeal, and assured 
them there was no farther occasion for their services, 
since the Paxton men, though falsely represented as 
enemies of government, were in fact its friends, en- 
tertaining no worse design than that of gaining relief 
to their sufferings, without injury to the city or its 
inhabitants. The people, ill satisfied with what they 
heard, returned in no placid temper to their homes. 2 
On the morrow, the good effect of the treaty was ap- 
parent in a general opening of schools, shops, and 
warehouses, and a return to the usual activity of 
business, which had been wholly suspended for some 

1 Sparks, Writings of Franklin, 148. Rupp, Hist. York and Lancas- 
VII. 293. ter Counties, 362 

2 Barton, Memoirs of Rittenhouse, 



440 THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap.XXY. 

days. The security was not of long duration. Before 
noon, an uproar more tumultuous than ever, a cry 
to arms, and a general exclamation that the Paxton 
Boys had broken the treaty and were entering the 
town, startled the indignant citizens. The streets 
were filled in an instant with a rabble of armed mer- 
chants and shopmen, who for once were fully bent 
on slaughter, and resolved to put a summary end to 
the long-protracted evil. Quiet was again restored, 
when it was found that the alarm was caused by 
about thirty of the frontiersmen, who, with singular 
audacity, were riding into the city on a visit of curi- 
osity. As their deportment was inoffensive, it was 
thought unwise to molest them. Several of these 
visitors had openly boasted of the part they had 
taken in the Conestoga murders, and a large reward 
had been offered for their apprehension; yet such 
was the state of factions in the city, and such the 
dread of the frontiersmen, that no man dared lay 
hand on the criminals. The party proceeded to the 
barracks, where they requested to see the Indians? 
declaring that they could point out several who had 
been in the battle against Colonel Bouquet, or en- 
gaged in other acts of open hostility. The request 
was granted, but no discovery made. Upon this, it 
was rumored abroad that the Quakers had removed 
the guilty individuals to screen them from just pun- 
ishment; an accusation which, for a time, excited 
much ill blood between the rival factions. 

The thirty frontiersmen withdrew from the city, and 
soon followed the example of their companions, who 
had begun to remove homeward, leaving their leaders, 
Smith and Gibson, to adjust their differences with 
the government. Their departure gave great relief 



Chap. XXV.] 



PAPEE WARFARE. 



441 



to the people of the neighborhood, to whom they had, 
at times, conducted themselves after a fashion some- 
what barbarous and uncivil, uttering hideous out- 
cries, in imitation of the war-whoop ; knocking down 
peaceable citizens, and pretending to scalp them; 
thrusting their guns in at windows, and committing 
unheard-of ravages among hen-roosts and hog-pens. 1 

Though the city was now safe from all external 
danger, contentions sprang up within its precincts, 
which, though by no means as perilous, were not 
less clamorous and angry than those menaced from 
an irruption of the rioters. 2 The rival factions turned 
savagely upon each other, while the more philosophic 
citizens stood laughing by, and ridiculed them both. 
The Presbyterians grew furious, the Quakers dogged 
and spiteful. Pamphlets, farces, dialogues, and poems 
came forth in quick succession. These sometimes 
exhibited a few traces of wit, and even of reasoning ; 
bat abuse was the favorite weapon, and it is difficult 
to say which of the combatants handled it with the 



1 David Rittenhouse, in one of his 
letters, speaks with great horror of 
the enormities committed by the Pax- 
ton Boys, and enumerates various 
particulars of their conduct. See 
Barton, Mem. of Rittenhouse, 148. 

2 " Whether the Paxton men were 
'more sinned against than sinning,' 
was a question which was agitated 
with so much ardor and acrimony, that 
even the schoolboys became warmly 
engaged in the contest. For my own 
part, though of the religious sect 
which had been long warring with 
the Quakers, I was entirely on the 
side of humanity and public duty, (or 
in this do I beg the question ?) and 
perfectly recollect my indignation at 
the sentiments of one of the ushers 
who was on the opposite side. His 

56 



name was Davis, and he was really a 
kind, good-natured man; yet from 
the dominion of his religious or polit- 
ical prejudices, he had been led to 
apologize for, if not to approve of an 
outrage, which was a disgrace to a 
civilized people. He had been among 
the riflemen on their coming into 
the city, and, talking with them upon 
the subject of the Lancaster mas- 
sacre, and particularly of the killing 
of Will Sock, the most distinguished 
of the victims, related with an air of 
approbation, this rodomontade of the 
real or pretended murderer. ' I,' said 
he, ' am the man who killed Will 
Sock — this is the arm that stabbed 
him to the heart, and I glory in it.' " 
— Memoirs of a Life chiefly passed in 
Pennsylvania, 40. 



442 THE RIOTERS MARCH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV. 

greater freedom and dexterity. 1 The Quakers accused 
the Presbyterians of conniving at the act of murder- 
ers, of perverting Scripture for their defence, and of 
aiding the rioters with counsel and money, in their 
audacious attempt against the public peace. The 
Presbyterians, on their part, with about equal justice, 
charged the Quakers with leaguing themselves with 
the common enemy, and exciting them to war. They 
held up to scorn those accommodating principles 
which denied the aid of arms to suffering fellow- 
countrymen, but justified their use at the first call 
of self-interest. The Quaker warrior, in his sober garb 
of ostentatious simplicity, his prim person adorned 
with military trappings, and his hands grasping a 
musket which threatened more peril to himself than 
to his enemy, was a subject of ridicule too tempting 
to be overlooked. 



1 " Persons who were intimate 
now scarcely speak ; or if they hap- 
pen to meet and converse, presently 
get to quarrelling. In short, harmony 
and love seem to be banished from 
amongst us." 

The above is an extract from the 
letter so often referred to. A frag- 
ment of the " Paxtoniad," one of the 
poems of the day, is given in the Ap- 
pendix. Few of the party pamphlets 
are worth quoting, and the titles of 
some of them will give an idea of 
their character: The Quaker Un- 
masked — A Looking-Glass for Pres- 
byterians — A Battle of Squirt — 
Plain Truth — Plain Truth found to 
be Plain Falsehood — The Author of 
Plain Truth Stripped Stark Naked 

— Clothes for a Stark Naked Author 

— The Squabble, a Pastoral Ec- 
logue — etc., etc. 

The pamphlet called Plain Truth 
drew down the especial indignation 
of the Quakers, and the following 
extract from one of their replies to it 



may serve as a fair specimen of the 
temper of the combatants: "But 
how came you to give your piece 
the Title of Plain Truth, if you had 
called it downright Lies, it would 
have agreed better with the Con- 
tents ; the Title therefore is a de- 
ception, and the contents manifestly 
false : in short I have carefully exam- 
ined it, and find in it no less than 17 
Positive Lies, and 10 false Insinua- 
tions contained in 15 Pages, Mon- 
strous, and from what has been said 
must conclude that when you wrote 
it, Truth was banished entirely from 
you, and that you wrote it with a 

truly Pious Lying P n Spirit, 

which appears in almost every Line ! " 

The peaceful society of Friends 
found among its ranks more than one 
such champion as the ingenious wri- 
ter of the above. Two collections of 
these pamphlets have been examined, 
one preserved in the City Library of 
Philadelphia, and the other in that of 
the New York Historical Society. 



Chap. XXV.] MEMORIALS OF THE PAXTON MEN. 443 

While this paper warfare was raging in the city, 
the representatives of the frontiersmen, Smith and 
Gibson, had laid before the Assembly the memorial, 
entitled the Remonstrance ; and to this a second paper, 
styled a Declaration, was soon afterwards added. 1 
Various grievances were specified, for which redress 
was demanded. It was urged that those counties 
where the Quaker interest prevailed sent to the Assem- 
bly more than their due share of representatives. 
The memorialists bitterly complained of a law, then 
before the Assembly, by which those charged with 
murdering Indians were to be brought to trial, not 
in the district where the act was committed, but in 
one of the three eastern counties. They represented 
the Moravian converts as enemies in disguise, and 
denounced the policy which yielded them protection 
and support while the sick and wounded of the 
frontiers were cruelly abandoned to their misery. 
They begged that a suitable reward might be offered 
for scalps, since the want of such encouragement 
had " damped the spirits of many brave men." An- 
gry invectives against the Quakers succeeded. To 
the " villany, infatuation, and influence of a certain 
faction, that have got the political reins in their 
hands, and tamely tyrannize over the other good 
subjects of the province," were to be ascribed, urged 
the memorialists, the intolerable evils which afflicted 
the people. The Quakers, they insisted, had held 
private treaties with the Indians, encouraged them 
to hostile acts, and excused their cruelties on the 
charitable plea that this was their method of mak- 
ing war. 



3 See Appendix, E. 



444 THE KIOTEES MAECH ON PHILADELPHIA. [Chap. XXV. 

The memorials were laid before a committee, who 
recommended that a public conference should be held 
with Smith and Gibson, to consider the grounds of 
complaint. To this the governor, in view of the ille- 
gal position assumed by the frontiersmen, would not 
give his consent, an assertion of dignity that would 
have done him more honor had he made it when the 
rioters were in arms before the city, at which time 
he had shown an abundant alacrity to negotiate. It 
w T as intimated to Smith and Gibson that they might 
leave Philadelphia; and the Assembly soon after be- 
came involved in its protracted quarrels with the 
governor, relative to the granting of supplies for the 
service of the ensuing campaign. The supply bill 
passed, as mentioned in a former chapter; and the 
consequent military preparations, together with a 
threatened renewal of the war on the part of the 
enemy, engrossed the minds of the frontier people, 
and caused the excitements of the winter to be for- 
gotten. No action on the two memorials was ever 
taken by the Assembly, and the memorable Paxton 
riots had no other definite result than that of ex- 
posing the weakness and distraction of the provincial 
government, and demonstrating the folly and absurdity 
of all principles of non-resistance. 

Yet to the student of human nature these events 
supply abundant food for reflection. In the frontiers- 
man, goaded, by the madness of his misery, to deeds 
more horrible than those by which he suffered, and 
half believing that, in the perpetration of these atroci- 
ties, he was but the minister of divine vengeance; 
in the Quaker, absorbed by one narrow philanthropy, 
and closing his ears to the outcries of his wretched 
countrymen ; in the Presbyterian, urged by party 



Chap. XXV.] 



THE MORAVIAN CONVERTS. 



445 



spirit and sectarian zeal to countenance the crimes 
of rioters and murderers, — in each and all of these 
lies an embodied satire, which may find its applica- 
tion in every age of the world, and every condition 
of society. 

The Moravian Indians, the occasion ■ — and, at least, 
as regards most of them, the innocent occasion — of 
the tumult, remained for a full year in the barracks 
of Philadelphia. There they endured frightful suffer- 
ings from the small-pox, which destroyed more than a 
third of their number. After the conclusion of peace, 
they were permitted to depart, and, having thanked 
the governor for his protection and care, they with- 
drew to the banks of the Susquehanna, where, under 
the direction of the missionaries, they once more 
formed a prosperous settlement. 1 

i Loskiel, Part II. 231. 

LL 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



BRADSTREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. 



The campaign of 1783, a year of disaster to the 
English colonies, was throughout of a defensive 
nature, and no important blow had been struck 
against the enemy. With the opening of the fol- 
lowing spring, preparations were made to renew the 
war on a more decisive plan. Before the commence- 
ment of hostilities, Sir William Johnson and his 
deputy, George Croghan, each addressed to the lords 
of trade a memorial, setting forth the character, 
temper, and resources of the Indian tribes, and sug- 
gesting the course of conduct which they judged it 
expedient to pursue. They represented that, before 
the conquest of Canada, all the tribes, jealous of 
French encroachment, had looked to the English to 
befriend and protect them, but that now one gen- 
eral feeling of distrust and hatred filled them all. 
They added that the neglect and injustice of the 
British government, the outrages of ruffian borderers 
and debauched traders, and the insolence of English 
soldiers, had aggravated this feeling, and given double 
effect to the restless machinations of the defeated 
French, who, to revenge themselves on their con- 
querors, were constantly stirring up the Indians to 
war. A race so brave and tenacious of liberty, so 
wild and erratic in their habits, dwelling in a 



Chap.XXYI.] MEMORIALS ON INDIAN ATE AIRS. 



447 



country so savage and inaccessible, could not be ex- 
terminated or reduced to subjection without an im- 
moderate expenditure of men, money, and time. 
The true policy of the British government was 
therefore to conciliate ; to soothe their jealous pride, 
galled by injuries and insults ; to gratify them by 
presents, and treat them with a respect and attention 
to which their haughty spirit would not fail to 
respond. We ought, they said, to make the Indians 
our friends, and, by a just, consistent, and straight- 
forward course, seek to gain their esteem, and wean 
them from their partiality to the French. To re- 
move the constant irritation which arose from the 
intrusion of the white inhabitants on their territory, 
Croghan urged the expediency of purchasing a large 
tract of land to the westward of the English settle- 
ments ; thus confining the tribes to remoter hunting- 
grounds. For a moderate sum, the Indians would 
part with as much land as might be required. A 
little more, laid out in annual presents, would keep 
them in good temper; and by judicious management, 
all hostile collision might be prevented, till, by the 
extension of the settlements, it should become expe- 
dient to make yet another purchase. 1 

This plan was afterwards carried into execution 
by the British government. Founded as it is upon 
the supposition that the Indian tribes must grad- 
ually dwindle and waste away, it might well have 
awakened the utmost fears of that unhappy people. 
Yet none but an enthusiast or fanatic could con- 
j demn it as iniquitous. To reclaim the Indians from 
their savage state has again and again been attempted, 

1 MS. Johnson Papers. 



448 BEADSTEEET'S AEMY ON THE LAKES. [CiiAr. XXVI. 

and each attempt lias failed. Their intractable, 
unchanging character leaves no other alternative 
than their gradual extinction, or the abandonment 
of the western world to eternal barbarism; and of 
this and other similar plans, whether the offspring 
of British or American legislation, it may alike be 
said that sentimental philanthropy will find it easier 
to cavil at than to amend them. 

Whatever may have been the merits of the scheme 
proposed to the lords of trade, it was necessary, 
before attempting its execution, to suppress the exist- 
ing outbreak — to beat the Indians into submission, 
and bind them by treaties as firm and stringent as 
circumstances would admit. "With this view, it was 
resolved to march two armies, from different points, 
into the heart of the Indian country. The command 
of the first was given to Colonel Bouquet, with 
orders to advance to Fort Pitt, and thence to pen- 
etrate into the midst of the Delaware and Shawanoe 
settlements. The other army, under Colonel Brad- 
street, was to ascend the lakes, and force the tribes 
of Detroit and the regions beyond to unconditional 
submission. The name of Bradstreet was already 
well known in America. At a dark and ill-omened 
period of the French war, he had crossed Lake On- 
tario with a force of three thousand provincials, and 
captured Fort Frontenac, a formidable stronghold of 
the French, commanding the outlet of the lake. He 
had distinguished himself, moreover, by his gallant 
conduct in a skirmish with the French and Indians 
on the Biver Oswego. These exploits had gained 
for him a reputation beyond his merits. He was a 
man of more activity than judgment, perverse, self- 
willed, vain, and eager for notoriety ; qualities which 



Chap. XXVI] DEPARTURE OF BRADSTREET. 449 

became sufficiently apparent before the end of the 
campaign. 1 

Several of the northern provinces furnished troops 
for the expedition; but these levies did not arrive 
until after the appointed time, and, as the service 
promised neither honor nor advantage, they were 
drawn from the scum and refuse of the population, 
looking more like candidates for a hospital than like 
men lit for the arduous duty before them. The ren- 
dezvous of the troops was at Albany, and thence 
they took their departure about the end of June. 
Adopting the usual military route to the westward, 
they passed up the Mohawk, crossed the Oneida 
Lake, and descended the swift current of the Os- 
wego. The boats and bateaux, crowded with men, 
passed between the war-worn defences of Oswego, 
which guarded the mouth of the river on either 
hand, and, issuing forth upon Lake Ontario, steered 
in long procession over its restless waters. A violent 
storm threw the flotilla into confusion; and several 
days elapsed before the ramparts of Fort Niag- 
ara rose in sight, breaking the tedious monotony of 
the forest-covered shores. The troops landed beneath 
its walls. The surrounding plains were soon dotted 
with the white tents of the little army, whose 
strength, far inferior to the original design, did not 
exceed twelve hundred men. 

1 In the correspondence of Gen- above is derived from the letters of 

eral Wolfe, recently published in Bradstreet himself, from the corre- 

Tait's Magazine, this distinguished spondence of General Gage and Sir 

officer speaks in high terms of Brad- William Johnson, and from a MS. 

street's military character. His re- paper containing numerous details 

marks, however, have reference solely of his conduct during the campaign 

to the capture of Fort Frontenac ; of 1764, and drawn up by the officers 

and he seems to have derived his who served under him. 

impressions from the public prints, This paper is in the possession of 

as he had no personal knowledge of Mrs. W. L. Stone. 
Bradstreet. The view expressed 

57 LL* 



450 BRAD STREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

A striking spectacle greeted them on their land- 
ing. Hundreds of Indian cabins were clustered 
along the skirts of the forest, and a countless mul- 
titude of savages, in all the picturesque variety of 
their barbaric costume, were roaming over the fields, 
or lounging about the shores of the lake. Towards 
the close of the previous winter, Sir "William John- 
son had despatched Indian messengers to the tribes 
far and near, warning them of the impending blow, 
and urging all who were friendly to the English, or 
disposed to make peace while there was yet time, to 
meet him at Niagara, and listen to his words. 
Throughout the winter, the sufferings of the Indians 
had been great and general. The suspension of the 
fur-trade; the consequent want of ammunition, cloth- 
ing, and other articles of necessity; the failure of 
expected aid from the French; and, above all, the 
knowledge that some of their own people had taken 
up arms for the English, combined to quench their 
thirst for war. Johnson's messengers had therefore 
been received with unexpected favor, and many had 
complied with his invitation. Some came to protest 
their friendship for the English; others hoped, by 
an early submission, to atone for past misconduct. 
Some came as spies; while others, again, were lured 
by the hope of receiving presents, and especially a 
draught of English milk, that is to say, a dram of 
whiskey. 

The trader Alexander Henry, the same who so 
narrowly escaped the massacre at Michillimackinac, 
was with a party of Ojibwas at the Sault Ste. 
Marie, when a canoe, filled with warriors, arrived, 
bringing the message of Sir William Johnson. A 
council was called, and the principal messenger, 



Chap. XXVI.] 



INDIAN ORACLE. 



451 



offering a belt of wampum, spoke as follows : " My 
friends and brothers, I am come with this belt from 
our great father, Sir William Johnson. He desired 
me to come to yon, as his ambassador, and tell you 
that he is making a great feast at Fort Niagara ; 
that his kettles are all ready, and his fires lighted. 
He invites you to partake of the feast, in common 
with your friends, the Six Nations, who have all 
made peace with the English. He advises you to 
seize this opportunity of doing the same, as you 
cannot otherwise fail of being destroyed ; for the 
English are on their march with a great army, 
which will be joined by different nations of Indians. 
In a word, before the fall of the leaf they will be 
at Michillimackinac, and the Six Nations with 
them." 

The Ojibwas had been debating whether they 
should go to Detroit, to the assistance of Pontiac, 
who had just sent them a message to that effect; 
but the speech of Johnson's messenger turned the 
current of their thoughts. Most of them were in 
favor of accepting the invitation; but, distrusting 
mere human wisdom in a crisis so important, they 
resolved, before taking a decisive step, to invoke the 
superior intelligence of the Great Turtle, the chief 
of all the spirits. A huge wigwam was erected, 
capable of containing the whole population of the 
little "village. In the centre, a sort of tabernacle 
was constructed by driving "posts into the ground, 
and closely covering them with hides. With the 
arrival of night, the propitious time for consulting 
their oracle, all the warriors assembled in the spa- 
cious wigwam, half lighted by the lurid glare of 
fires, and waited, in suspense and awe, the issue of 



452 BEAD S TREE T' S ARMY ON THE LAE1ES. [Chap. XXVL 

tlie invocation. The medicine man, or magician, 
shipped almost naked, now entered the central tab- 
ernacle, which was barely large enough to receive 
him, and carefully closed the aperture. At once the 
whole structure began to shake with a violence 
which threatened its demolition, and a confusion of 
horrible sounds, shrieks, howls, yells, and moans of 
anguish, mingled with articulate words, sounded in 
hideous discord from within. This outrageous clamor, 
which announced to the horror-stricken spectators 
the presence of a host of evil spirits, ceased as sud- 
denly as it had begun. A low, feeble sound, like 
the whine of a young puppy, was next heard within 
the recess ; upon which the warriors raised a cry of 
joy, and hailed it as the voice of the Great Turtle 
— the spirit who never lied. The magician soon 
announced that the spirit was ready to answer any 
question which might be proposed. On this, the 
chief warrior stepped forward, and, having propitiated 
the Great Turtle by a present of tobacco thrust 
through a small hole in the tabernacle, inquired if 
the English were in reality preparing to attack the 
Indians, and if the troops were already come to 
Niagara. Once more the tabernacle was violently 
shaken, a loud yell was heard, and it was apparent 
to all that the spirit was gone. A pause of anxious 
expectation ensued, when, after the lapse of a quarter 
of an hour, the weak, puppy-like voice of the Great 
Turtle was again heard addressing the magician in 
a language unknown to the auditors. When the 
spirit ceased speaking, the magician interpreted his 
words. During the short interval of his departure, 
he had crossed Lake Huron, visited Niagara, and 
descended the St. Lawrence to Montreal. Few 



Chap. XXVI] INDIAN OEACLE, 453 

soldiers had as yet reached Niagara ; but as he 
flew down the St. Lawrence, he had seen the water 
covered with boats, all filled with English warriors, 
coming to make war on the Indians. Having ob- 
tained this answer to his first question, the chief 
ventured to propose another, and inquired if he and 
his people, should they accept the invitation of Sir 
William Johnson, would be well received at Niagara. 
The answer was most satisfactory. " Sir William 
Johnson," said the spirit, " will fill your canoes with 
presents; with blankets, kettles, guns, gunpowder 
and shot, and large barrels of rum, such as the 
stoutest of the Indians will not be able to lift ; and 
every man will return in safety to his family." This 
grateful response produced a general outburst of ac- 
clamations; and with cries of joy, many voices were 
heard to exclaim, " I will go too ! I will go too ! " 1 
They set out, accordingly, for Niagara ; and thither 
also numerous bands of warriors were tending, urged 
by similar messages, and encouraged, it may be, by 
similar responses of their oracles. Crossing fresh- 
water oceans in their birch canoes, and threading the 
devious windings of solitary streams, they came flock- 
ing to the common centre of attraction. Such a 

1 Henry, Travels and Adventures, ing assumed a visible and tangible 

171. form, which exposed him to the inci- 

The method of invoking the spirits, dents of mortality. During these in- 
described above, is a favorite species vocations, the lodge or tabernacle 
of imposture among the medicine was always observed to shake vio- 
men of most Algonquin tribes, and lently to and fro, in a manner so 
had been observed and described a remarkable as exceedingly to perplex 
century and a half before the period the observers. The variety of dis- 
of this history. Champlain, the found- cordant sounds, uttered by the medi- 
er of Canada, witnessed one of these cine man, need not surprise us more 
ceremonies ; and the Jesuit Le Jeune than those accurate imitations of the 
gives an account of a sorcerer, who, cries of various animals, to which In- 
having invoked a spirit in this man- dian hunters are accustomed to train 
ner, treacherously killed him with a their strong and flexible voices, 
hatchet, the mysterious visitant hav- 



454 BRADSTREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI 



concourse of savages has seldom been seen in America. 
Menomonies, Ottawas, Ojibwas, Mississaugas, from the 
north, Caughnawagas from Canada, even Wyandots 
from Detroit, together with a host of Iroquois, were 
congregated round Fort Niagara to the number of 
more than two thousand warriors, many of whom had 
brought with them their women and children. 1 Even 



i MS. Johnson Papers. 

The following extract from Henry's 
Travels will exhibit the feelings with 
which the Indians came to the con- 
ference at Niagara, besides illus- 
trating a curious feature of their 
superstitions. Many tribes, including 
some widely differing in language 
and habits, regard the rattlesnake 
with superstitious veneration, looking 
upon him either as a manitou, or 
spirit, or as a creature endowed with 
mystic powers and attributes, giving 
him an influence over the fortunes 
of mankind. Henry accompanied 
his Indian companions to Niagara, 
and, on the way, he chanced to dis- 
cover one of these snakes near their 
encampment. 

"The reptile was coiled, and its 
head raised considerably above its 
body. Had I advanced another step 
before my discovery, I must have 
trodden upon it. 

" I no sooner saw the snake, than 
I hastened to the canoe, in order to 
procure my gun; but the Indians, 
observing what I was doing, inquired 
the occasion, and, being informed, 
begged me to desist. At the same 
time, they followed me to the spot, 
with their pipes and tobacco-pouches 
in their hands. On returning, I found 
the snake still coiled. 

" The Indians, on their part, sur- 
rounded it, all addressing it by turns, 
and calling it their grandfather, but 
yet keeping at some distance. Dur- 
ing this part of the ceremony, they 
filled their pipes ; and now each blew 
the smoke toward the snake, who, as 
it appeared to me, really received it 
with pleasure. In a word, after re- 



maining coiled, and receiving in- 
cense, for the space of half an hour, 
it stretched itself along the ground, 
in visible good humor. Its length 
was between four and five feet. Hav- 
ing remained outstretched for some 
time, at last it moved slowly away, 
the Indians following it, and still ad- 
dressing it by the title of grandfather, 
beseeching it to take care of their 
families during their absence, and to 
be pleased to open the heart of Sir 
William Johnson, so that he might 
show them charity, and fill their canoe 
with rum. 

" One of the chiefs added a pe- 
tition, that the snake would take no 
notice of the insult which had been 
offered him by the Englishman, who 
would even have put him to death, 
but for the interference of the In- 
dians, to whom it was hoped he would 
impute no part of the offence. They 
further requested, that he would re- 
main, and not return among the Eng- 
lish ; that is, go eastward. 

" After the rattlesnake was gone, 
I learned that this was the first time 
that an individual of the species had 
been seen so far to the northward and 
westward of the River Des Francais ; 
a circumstance, moreover, from which 
my companions were disposed to in- 
fer, that this manito had come, or been 
sent, on purpose to meet them ; that 
his errand had been no other than to 
stop them on their way; and that 
consequently it would be most ad- 
visable to return to the point of de- 
parture. I was so fortunate, however, 
as to prevail with them to embark; 
and at six o'clock in the evening we 
again encamped. 



Chap. XXVI] INDIANS AT NIAGARA. 



455 



the Sacs, the Foxes, and the Winnebagoes had sent 
their deputies; and the Osages, a tribe beyond the 
Mississippi, had their representative in this general 
meeting. 

Though the assembled multitude consisted, for the 
most part, of the more pacific members of the tribes 
represented, yet their friendly disposition was by no 
means certain. Several straggling soldiers were shot 
at in the neighborhood, and it soon became apparent 
that the utmost precaution must be taken to avert 
a rupture. The troops were kept always on their 
guard, while the black muzzles of the cannon, thrust 
forth from the bastions of the fort, struck a whole- 
some awe into the savage throng below. 

Although so many had attended the meeting, there 
were still numerous tribes, and portions of tribes, who 
maintained a rancorous, unwavering hostility. The 



" Early the next morning we pro- 
ceeded. We had a serene sky and 
very little wind, and the Indians there- 
fore determined on steering across 
the lake, to an island which just ap- 
peared in the horizon ; saving, by this 
course, a distance of thirty miles, 
which would be lost in keeping the 
shore. At nine o'clock A. M. we had 
a light breeze, to enjoy the benefit 
of which we hoisted sail. Soon after, 
the wind increased, and the Indians, 
beginning to be alarmed, frequently 
called on the rattlesnake to come to 
their assistance. By degrees the 
waves grew high; and at eleven 
o'clock it blew a hurricane, and we 
expected every moment to be swal- 
lowed up. From prayers, the Indians 
now proceeded to sacrifices, both 
alike offered to the god-rattlesnake, 
or manito-Jcinibic. One of the chiefs 
took a dog, and after tying its fore 
legs together, threw it overboard, at 
the same time calling on the snake 
to preserve us from being drowned, 



and desiring him to satisfy his hunger 
with the carcass of the dog. The 
snake was unpropitious, and the wind 
increased. Another chief sacrificed 
another dog, with the addition of 
some tobacco. In the prayer which 
accompanied these gifts, he besought 
the snake, as before, not to avenge 
upon the Indians the insult which he 
had received from myself, in the con- 
ception of a design to put him to 
death. He assured the snake that I 
was absolutely an Englishman, and 
of kin neither to him nor to them. 

" At the conclusion of this speech, 
an Indian, who sat near me, observed, 
that if we were drowned it would be 
for my fault alone, and that I ought 
myself to be sacrificed, to appease 
the angry manito ; nor was I without 
apprehensions, that in case of ex- 
tremity, this would be my fate ; but, 
happily for me, the storm at length 
abated, and we reached the island 
safely." — Henry, Travels, 175. 



456 BRAD STREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 



Delawares and Shawanoes, however, against whom 
Bouquet, with the army of the south, was then in 
the act of advancing, sent a message to the effect, 
that, though they had no fear of the English, though 
they regarded them as old women, and held them in 
contempt, yet, out of pity for their sufferings, they 
were willing to treat of peace. To this haughty mis- 
sive Johnson made no answer; and, indeed, those who 
sent it were, at this very time, renewing the bloody 
work of the previous year along the borders of Penn- 
sylvania and Virginia. The Senecas, that numerous 
and warlike people, to whose savage enmity were to 
be ascribed the massacre at the Devil's Hole, and 
other disasters of the last summer, had recently made 
a preliminary treaty with Sir William Johnson, and 
at the same time pledged themselves to appear at 
Niagara to ratify and complete it. They broke their 
promise, and it soon became known that they had 
leagued themselves with a large band of hostile Del- 
awares, who had visited their country. Upon this, a 
messenger was sent to them, threatening that, unless 
they instantly came to Niagara, the English would 
march upon them and burn their villages. The 
menace had full effect, and a large body of these for- 
midable warriors appeared at the English camp, 
bringing fourteen prisoners, besides several deserters 
and runaway slaves. A peace was concluded, on con- 
dition that they should never again attack the Eng- 
lish, and that they should cede to the British crown 
a strip of land, between the Lakes Erie and Ontario, 
four miles in width, on either side of the River, or 
Strait, of Niagara. 1 A treaty was next made with a 

1 Articles of Peace concluded with the Senecas, at Fort Niagara, July 
18, 1764, MS. 



Chap.XXVL] OTTAWA S AND MENOMONIES. 



457 



deputation of Wyandots from Detroit, on condition 
of the delivery of prisoners, and the preservation of 
friendship for the future. 

Councils were next held, in turn, with each of 
the various tribes assembled round the fort, some of 
whom craved forgiveness for the hostile acts they 
had committed, and deprecated the vengeance of the 
English ; while others alleged their innocence, urged 
their extreme wants and necessities, and begged that 
English traders might once more be allowed to visit 
them. The council-room in the fort was crowded 
from morning till night ; and the wearisome formali- 
ties of such occasions, the speeches made and replied 
to, and the final shaking of hands, smoking of pipes, 
and serving out of whiskey, engrossed the time of 
the superintendent for many successive days. 

Among the Indians present were a band of Otta- 
wa's from Michillimackinac, and remoter settlements, 
beyond Lake Michigan, and a band of Menomonies 
from Green Bay. The former, it will be remembered, 
had done good service to the English, by rescuing 
the survivors of the garrison of Michillimackinac 
from the clutches of the Ojibwas ; and the latter had 
deserved no less at their hands, by the protection 
they had extended to Lieutenant Gorell, and the gar- 
rison at Green Bay. Conscious of their merits, they 
had come to Niagara in full confidence of a favorable 
reception. Nor were they disappointed; for Johnson 
met them with a cordial welcome, and greeted them 
as friends and brothers. They, on their part, were 
not wanting in expressions of pleasure; and one of 
their orators exclaimed, in the figurative language of 
his people, "When our brother came to meet us, 

58 MM 



458 BEADSTREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

the storms ceased, the lake became smooth, and the 
whole face of nature was changed." 

They disowned all connection or privity with the de- 
signs of Pontiac. " Brother," said one of the Ottawa 
chiefs, " you must not imagine I am acquainted with, 
the cause of the war. I only heard a little bird 
whistle an account of it, and, on going to Michilli- 
mackinac, I found your people killed; upon which I 
sent our priest to inquire into the matter. On the 
priest's return, he brought me no favorable account, 
but a war-hatchet from Pontiac, which I scarcely 
looked on, and immediately threw away." 

Another of the Ottawas, a chief of the remoter 
band of Lake Michigan, spoke to a similar effect, as 
follows : " We are not of the same people as those 
residing about Michillimackinac ; we only heard at a 
distance that the enemy were killing your soldiers, 
on which we covered our heads, and I resolved not 
to suffer my people to engage in the war. I gath- 
ered them together, and made them sit still. In the 
spring, on uncovering my head, I perceived that they 
had again begun a war, and that the sky was all 
cloudy in that quarter." 

The superintendent thanked them for their fidelity 
to the English, reminded them that their true inter- 
est lay in the preservation of peace, and concluded 
with a gift of food and clothing, and a permission, 
denied to all the rest, to open a traffic with the tra- 
ders, who had already begun to assemble at the fort. 
" And now, my brother," said a warrior, as the coun- 
cil was about to break up, "we beg that you will 
tell us where we can find some rum to comfort us, 
for it is long since we have tasted any, and we are 



Chap. XXVI.] 



HE LEAVES NIAGARA. 



459 



very thirsty." This honest request was not re- 
fused. The liquor was distributed, and a more 
copious supply promised for the future; upon which 
the deputation departed, and repaired to their en- 
campment, much pleased with their reception. 1 

Throughout these conferences, one point of policy 
was constantly adhered to. No general council was 
held. Separate treaties w 7 ere made with each individ- 
ual band, in order to promote their mutual jealousies 
and rivalries, and discourage the feeling of union, 
and of a common cause among the widely-scattered 
tribes. Johnson at length completed his task, and, 
on the sixth of August, set sail for Oswego. The 
march of the army had hitherto been delayed by 
rumors of hostile designs on the part of the In- 
dians, who, it was said, had formed a scheme for 
attacking Fort Niagara, as soon as the troops should 
have left the ground. Now, however, when the con- 
course was melting away, and the tribes departing 
for their distant homes, it was thought that the 
danger was past, and that the army might safely 
resume its progress. They advanced, accordingly, to 
Fort Schlosser, above the cataract, whither their 
boats and bateaux had been sent before them, craned 
up the rocks at Lewiston, and dragged by oxen over 
the rough portage road. The troops had been joined 
by three hundred friendly Indians, and an equal 
number of Canadians. The appearance of the latter 
in arms would, it was thought, have great effect on 
the minds of the eneur , who had always looked 

1 MS. Johnson Papers. MS. Min- 20, 1764. The extracts given above 

utes of Conference with the chiefs are copied verbatim from the original 

and warriors of the Ottawas and record. 
Menomonies at Fort Niagara, July 



460 BRADSTREETS ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

upon them as friends and supporters. Of the In- 
dian allies, the greater part were Iroquois, and the 
remainder, about a hundred in number, Ojibwas and 
Mississaugas ; the former being the same who had 
recently arrived from the Sault Ste. Marie, bringing 
with them their prisoner, Alexander Henry. Henry 
was easily persuaded to accompany the expedition, 
and the command of the Ojibwas and Mississaugas 
was assigned to him — "To me," writes the ad- 
venturous trader, "whose best hope it had lately 
been to live by their forbearance." His long-con- 
tinued sufferings and dangers hardly deserved to be 
rewarded by so great a misfortune as that of com- 
manding a body of Indian warriors; an evil from 
which, however, he was soon to be relieved. The 
army had hardly begun its march, when nearly all 
his followers ran off, judging it wiser to return 
home with the arms and clothing given them for 
the expedition than to make war against their own 
countrymen and relatives. Fourteen warriors still 
remained ; but on the following night, when the 
army lay at Fort Schlosser, having contrived by 
some means to obtain liquor, they created such a 
commotion in the camp by yelling and firing their 
guns as to excite the utmost indignation of the 
commander. They received from him, in conse- 
quence, a reproof so harsh and ill judged, that most 
of them went home in disgust, and Henry found his 
Indian battalion suddenly dwindled to four or five 
vagabond hunters. 1 A large number of Iroquois still 
followed the army, the strength of which, farther 
increased by a reenforcement of Highlanders, was 
now very considerable. 



1 Henry, Travels, 183. 



Chap. XXVI-1 



PRETENDED EMBASSY. 



461 



The troops left Fort Sclilosser on the eighth. 
Their boats and bateaux pushed out into the 
Niagara, whose expanded waters reposed in a 
serenity soon to be exchanged for the wild roar 
and tumultuous struggle of the rapids and the cat- 
aract. They coasted along the southern shore of 
Lake Erie until the twelfth, when, in the neighbor- 
hood of PresquTsle, they were overtaken by a 
storm of rain, which forced them to drag their boats 
on shore, and pitch their tents in the dripping 
forest. Before the day closed, word was brought 
that strange Indians were near the camp. They 
soon made their appearance, proclaiming themselves 
to be chiefs and deputies of the Delawares and 
Shawanoes, empowered to beg for peace in the name 
of their respective tribes. Various opinions were 
entertained of the visitors. The Indian allies wished 
to kill them, and many of the officers believed them 
to be spies. There was no proof of their pretended 
character of deputies, and for all that appeared to 
the contrary, they might be a mere straggling party 
of warriors. Their professions of an earnest desire 
for peace were contradicted by the fact that they 
brought with them but one small belt of wampum, 
a pledge no less indispensable in a treaty with these 
tribes than seals and signatures in a convention of 
European sovereigns. 1 Bradstreet knew, or ought to 
have known, the character of the treacherous enemy 
with whom he had to deal. He knew that the 

i Eveiy article in a treaty must be Gage and Sir William Johnson, 
confirmed by a belt of wampum ; Mante accompanied Bradstreet's ex- 
otherwise it is void. Mante, the his- pedition with the rank of major, and 
torian of the French war, asserts he is a zealous advocate of his com- 
that they brought four belts. But mander, whom he seeks to defend, at 
this is contradicted in contemporary the expense both of Colonel Bouquet 
letters, including several of General and General Gage. 

M M * 



462 BRADSTREET ; S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

Shawanoes and DelaAvares had shown, throughout 
the war, a ferocious and relentless hostility; that 
they had sent an insolent message to Niagara; and 
finally, that in his own instructions he was enjoined 
to deal sternly with them, and not be duped by pre- 
tended overtures. Yet, in spite of the suspicious 
character of the self-styled deputies, in spite of the 
sullen wrath of his Indian allies and the murmured 
dissent of his officers, he listened to their proposals, 
and entered into a preliminary treaty. He pledged 
himself to refrain from attacking the Delawares and 
Shawanoes, on .condition that within twenty-five days 
the deputies should again meet him at Sandusky, in 
order to yield up their prisoners, and conclude a 
definitive treaty of peace. 1 It afterwards appeared — 
and this, indeed, might have been suspected at the 
time — that the sole object of the overtures w r as to 
retard the action of the army until the season 
should be too far advanced to prosecute the cam- 
paign. At this very moment, the Delaware and 
Shawanoe war-parties were murdering and scalping 
along the frontiers ; and the work of havoc con- 
tinued for weeks, until it was checked at length by 
the operations of Colonel Bouquet. 

Bradstreet was not satisfied with the promise he 
had made to abandon his own hostile designs. He 
consummated his folly and presumption by despatch- 
ing a messenger to his superior officer, Colonel Bou- 
quet, informing him that the Delawares and Shaw- 
anoes had been reduced to submission without his 
aid, and that he might withdraw his troops, as there 

i Preliminary treaty between concluded at L'Ance aux Feuilles, on 
Colonel Bradstreet and the deputies Lake Erie, August 12, 1764, MS. 
of the Delawares and Shawanoes, 



Chap. XXVI] GAGE CENSURES HIS CONDUCT. 



463 



was no need of his advancing farther. Bouquet, 
astonished and indignant, paid no attention to this 
communication, but pursued his march as before. 1 

The course pursued by Bradstreet in this affair — 
a course which can only be ascribed to the vain 
ambition of finishing the war without the aid of 
others — drew upon him. the severe censures of the 
commander-in-chief, who, on hearing of the treaty, 
at once annulled it. 2 Bradstreet has been accused 
of having exceeded his orders in promising to con- 
clude a definitive treaty with the Indians, a power 
which was vested in Sir William Johnson alone ; 
but as upon this point his instructions were not 
explicit, he may be spared the full weight of this 
additional charge. 3 



1 MS. Letter — Bouquet to Gage, 
Sept. 3. 

2 Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Gage to Bradstreet, Sept. 2. 

" I again repeat that I annul and 
disavow the peace you have made." 

The following extracts will express 
the opinions of Gage with respect to 
this affair. 

MS. Letter — Gage to Bradstreet, 
Oct. 15. 

" They have negotiated with you 
on Lake Erie, and cut our throats 
upon the frontiers. With your let- 
ters of peace I received others, giv- 
ing accounts of murders, and these 
acts continue to this time. Had you 
only consulted Colonel Bouquet, be- 
fore you agreed upon any thing with 
them, (a deference he was certainly 
entitled to, instead of an order to 
stop his march,) you would have been 
acquainted with the treachery of 
those people, and not have suffered 
yourself to be thus deceived, and 
you would have saved both Colonel 
Bouquet and myself from the dilem- 
ma you brought us into. You con- 
cluded a peace with people who were 
daily murdering us." 



MS. Letter — Gage to Johnson, 
Sept. 4. 

" You will have received my let- 
ter of the 2d inst, enclosing you 
the unaccountable treaty betwixt 
Colonel Bradstreet and the Shawa- 
nese, Dela wares, &c. On considera- 
tion of the treaty, it does not appear 
to me that the ten Indians therein 
mentioned were sent on an errand 
of peace. If they had, would they 
not have been at Niagara ? or would 
the insolent and audacious message 
have been sent there in the lieu of 
offers of peace? Would not they 
have been better provided with 
belts on such an occasion? They 
give only one string of wam- 
pum. You will know this better, 
but it appears strange to me. They 
certainly came to watch the motions 
of the troops." 

3 MS. Letter — Gage to Brad- 
street, Sept. 2. 

Bradstreet's instructions directed 
him to offer peace to such tribes as 
should make their submission. " To 
offer peace" writes Gage, "I think 
can never be construed a power to 
conclude and dictate the articles of 



464 BEADSTEEET'S AEMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 



Having, as he thought, accomplished not only a 
great part of his own task, but also the whole of 
that which had been assigned to Colonel Bouquet, 
Bradstreet resumed his progress westward, and in a 
few clays reached Sandusky. He had been ordered 
to attack the Wyandots, Ottawas, and Miamis, dwell- 
ing near this place ; but at his approach, these In- 
dians, hastening to avert the danger, sent a deputa- 
tion to meet him, promising that, if he would refrain 
from attacking them, they would follow him to 
Detroit, and there conclude a treaty. Bradstreet 
thought proper to trust this slippery promise, though, 
with little loss of time, he might have reduced them, 
on the spot, to a much more effectual submission. 
He now bent his course for Detroit, leaving the In- 
dians of Sandusky much delighted, and probably no 
less surprised, at the success of their embassy. Be- 
fore his departure, however, he despatched Captain 
Morris, with several Canadians and friendly Indians, 
to the Illinois, in order to persuade the savages of 
that region to treat of peace with the English. 
The measure was in a high degree ill advised and 
rash, promising but doubtful advantage, and exposing 
the life of a valuable officer to imminent risk. The 
sequel of Morris's adventure will soon appear. 

The English boats now entered the mouth of the 
Detroit, and on the twenty-sixth of August came 
within sight of the fort and adjacent settlements. 
The inhabitants of the Wyandot village on the 
right, who, it will be remembered, had recently 
made a treaty of peace at Niagara, ran down to the 

peace, and you certainly know that William Johnson, his majesty's sole 
no such power could with propriety agent and superintendent for Indian 
be lodged in any person but in Sir affairs." 



Chap. XXVI.] 



BEADSTEEET AT DETEOIT. 



465 



shore, shouting, whooping, and firing their grins, — a 
greeting more noisy than sincere, — while the cannon 
of the garrison echoed salutation from the opposite 
shore, and cheer on cheer, deep and heartfelt, pealed 
welcome from the crowded ramparts. 

Well might Gladwyn's beleaguered soldiers rejoice 
at the approaching succor. They had been beset for 
more than fifteen months by their wily enemy, and 
though there were times when not an Indian could 
be seen, yet woe to the soldier who should wander 
into the forest in search of game, or stroll too far 
beyond range of the cannon. Throughout the pre- 
ceding winter, they had been left in comparative 
quiet; but with the opening spring, the Indians had 
resumed their pertinacious hostilities ; not, however, 
with the same activity and vigor as during the pre- 
ceding summer. The messages of Sir William John- 
son, and the tidings of Bradstreet's intended expedi- 
tion, had had great effect upon their minds, and some 
of them were inclined to sue for peace; but still the 
garrison were harassed by frequent alarms, and days 
and nights of watchfulness were their unvarying lot. 
Cut off for months together from all communication 
with their race, pent up in an irksome imprisonment, 
ill supplied with provisions, and with clothing worn 
threadbare, they hailed with delight the prospect of 
a return to the world from which they had been 
banished so long. The army had no sooner landed 
than the garrison was relieved, and fresh troops sub- 
stituted in their place. Bradstreet's next care was to 
inquire into the conduct of the Canadian inhabitants 
of Detroit, and punish such of them as had given 
aid to the Indians. A few only were found guilty, 
59 



466 BRAD STREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

the more culpable having fled to the Illinois on the 
approach of the army. 

Pontiac too was gone. The great war-chief, his 
vengeance unslaked, and his purpose unshaken, had 
retired before an overwhelming force, and, with the 
more resolute and warlike of his followers, with- 
drawn to the banks of the Maumee, whence he sent 
a haughty defiance to the English commander. The 
Indian villages near Detroit were half emptied of 
their inhabitants, many of whom still followed the 
desperate fortunes of their indomitable leader. Those 
who remained were, for the most part, sincerely de- 
sirous of peace ; for the war had involved them in 
great distress, by cutting off the fur-trade, and thus 
depriving them of the supplies which habit had 
made essential to their support. They therefore 
readily obeyed the summons of Bradstreet to meet 
him in council. 

The council was held in the open air, on the 
morning of the seventh of September, with all the 
accompaniments of military display which could 
inspire awe and respect among the assembled sav- 
ages. The tribes, or rather fragments of tribes, rep- 
resented at this meeting, were the Ottawas, Ojibwas, 
Pottawattamies, Miamis, Sacs, and Wyandots. The 
Indians of Sandusky kept imperfectly the promise 
they had made, the Wyandots of that place alone 
sending a full deputation, while the other tribes 
were merely represented by the Ojibwa chief Was- 
son. This man, who was the principal chief of his 
tribe, and the most prominent orator on the present 
occasion, rose and opened the council. 

" My brother," he said, addressing Bradstreet, 



Chap. XXVI.] 



TERMS OF THE TREATY. 



467 



"last year God forsook us. God has now opened 
our eyes, and we desire to be heard. It is God's 
will our hearts are altered. It was God's will you 
had such fine weather to come to us. It is God's 
will also there should be peace and tranquillity 
over the face of the earth and of the waters." 

Having delivered this eloquent exordium, Wasson 
frankly confessed that the tribes which he represented 
were all justly chargeable with the war, and now 
deeply regretted their delinquency. It is common 
with Indians, when accused of acts of violence, to lay 
the blame upon the unbridled recklessness of their 
young warriors ; and this excuse is often perfectly 
sound and valid ; but since, in the case of a premed- 
itated and long-continued war, it was glaringly inad- 
missible, they now reversed the usual course, and 
made scapegoats of the old chiefs and warriors, who, 
as they declared, had led the people astray by sinister 
counsel and bad example. 1 

Bradstreet would grant peace only on condition 
that they should become subjects of the King of Eng- 
land, and acknowledge that he held over their coun- 
try a sovereignty as ample and complete as over any 
other part of his dominions. Nothing could be more 
impolitic and absurd than this demand. The small- 
est attempt at an invasion of their liberties has 
always been regarded by the Indians with extreme 
jealousy, and a prominent cause of the war had been 
an undue assumption of authority on the part of the 
English. This article of the treaty, could its purport 
| have been fully understood, might have kindled afresh 
I the quarrel which it sought to extinguish; but hap- 

1 MS. Minutes of Conference be- dians of Detroit, Sept. 7, 1764. See, 
ttveen Colonel Bradstreet and the In- also, Mante, 517. 



468 BEAD S TREE T ; S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

pily not a savage present was able to comprehend it. 
Subjection and sovereignty are ideas which never en- 
ter into the mind of an Indian, and therefore his 
language has no words to express them. Most of 
the western tribes, it is true, had been accustomed 
to call themselves children of the King of France; 
but the words were a mere compliment, conveying 
no sense of any political relation whatever. Yet it 
was solely by means of this harmless metaphor that 
the condition in question could be explained to the 
assembled chiefs. Thus interpreted, it met with a 
ready assent, since, hi their eyes, it involved no con- 
cession beyond a mere unmeaning change of forms 
and words. They promised, in future, to call the 
English king father, instead of brother, unconscious 
of any obligation which so trifling a change could 
impose, and mentally reserving a full right to make 
war on him or his people, whenever it should suit 
their convenience. When Bradstreet returned from 
his expedition, he boasted that he had reduced the 
tribes of Detroit to terms of more complete submis- 
sion than any other Indians had ever before yielded; 
but the truth was soon detected and exposed by those 
conversant with Indian affairs. 1 

At this council, Bradstreet was guilty of the bad 
policy and bad taste of speaking through the medium 
of a French interpreter; so that most of his own 
officers, as well as the Iroquois allies, who were 
strangers to the Algonquin language, remained in 
ignorance of all that passed. The latter were highly 
indignant, and refused to become parties to the 
treaty, or go through the usual ceremony of shaking 



i MS. Letter — Johnson to the Board of Trade, Oct. 30. 



Chat. XXVL] 



EMBASSY OF MORRIS. 



469 



hands with the chiefs of Detroit, insisting that they 
had not heard their speeches, and knew not whether 
they were friends or enemies. In another particular, 
also, Bradstreet gave great offence. From some un- 
explained impulse or motive, he cut to pieces, with a 
hatchet, a belt of wampum which was about to be 
used in the council ; and all the Indians present, 
both friends and enemies, were alike incensed at this 
rude violation of the ancient pledge of faith, which, 
in their eyes, was invested with something of a sacred 
character. 1 

Having settled the affairs of Detroit, Bradstreet 
despatched Captain Howard, with a strong detach- 
ment, to take possession of Michillimackinac, which 
had remained unoccupied since its capture on the 
previous summer. Howard effected his object with- 
out resistance, and, at the same time, sent parties of 
troops to reoccupy the deserted posts of Green Bay 
and Sault Ste. Marie. Thus, after the interval of 
more than a year, the flag of England was again 
displayed among the solitudes of the northern wil- 
derness. 2 

While Bradstreet' s army lay encamped on the fields 
near Detroit, Captain Morris, with a few Iroquois 
and Canadian attendants, was pursuing his adventur- 
ous embassy to the country of the Illinois. Ascend- 
ing the Maumee in a canoe, he soon approached the 
camp of Pontiac, who, as we have seen, had with- 
drawn to the banks of this river, with his chosen 
warriors. While yet at some distance, Morris and 

1 MS. Remarks on the Conduct of Sandusky, published in several news- 
Colonel Bradstreet — found among papers of the day. 
the Johnson Papers. 2 MS. Report of Captain Howard. 

See, also, an extract of a letter from 

NN 



470 BRADSTREETS ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

his party were met by about two hundred Indians, 
who treated him with great violence and rudeness, 
while they offered a friendly welcome to the Iroquois 
and Canadians. Attended by this clamorous escort, 
they all moved together towards the camp. At its 
outskirts stood Pontiac himself. He met the am- 
bassador with a scowling brow, and refused to offer 
his hand. " The English are liars," was his first 
fierce salutation. He then displayed a letter ad- 
dressed to himself, and purporting to have been writ- 
ten by the King of France, containing, as Morris 
declares, the grossest calumnies which the most in- 
genious malice could devise, to incense the Indians 
against the English. The old falsehood was not for- 
gotten. " Your French father," said the writer, " is 
neither dead nor asleep ; he is already on his way, 
with sixty great ships, to revenge himself on the 
English, and drive them out of America." The letter 
was written by a French officer, or more probably a 
French fur-trader, who, for his own profit, wished to 
inflame the passions of the Indians, and thus bar the 
way against English competitors. If Bradstreet, be- 
fore leaving Sandusky, had forced the Indians of that 
place to submission, he would have inspired such an 
awe and respect among the tribes of the whole adja- 
cent region, that Morris might have been assured of 
safety and good treatment, even in the camp of Pon- 
tiac. As it was, the knowledge that so many of their 
relatives were in the power of the army at Detroit 
restrained the Ottawa warriors from personal violence ; 
and, having plundered the whole party of every thing 
except their arms, their clothing, and their canoe, 
they suffered them to depart. 

Leaving the unfriendly camp, they urged their way, 



Chap. XXVI.] 



EMBASSY OF MORRIS. 



471 



with poles and paddles, against the rippling current 
of the Maumee, and on the morning of the seventh 
day reached the neighborhood of Fort Miami. This 
post, captured during the preceding year, had since 
remained without a garrison; and its only tenants 
were the Canadians, who had built their houses within 
its palisades, and a few Indians, who thought fit to 
make it their temporary abode. The meadows about 
the fort were dotted with the lodges of the Kicka- 
poos, a large band of whom had recently arrived; 
but the great Miami village was on the opposite side 
of the stream, screened from sight by the forest 
which intervened. 

Morris brought his canoe to land at a short dis- 
tance below the fort, and while his attendants were 
making their way through the belt of woods which 
skirted the river, he himself remained behind to com- 
plete some necessary arrangements. It was fortunate 
that he did so, for his attendants had scarcely reached 
the open meadow, which lay behind the woods, when 
they were encountered by a mob of savages, armed 
with spears, hatchets, and bows and arrows, and bent 
on killing the Englishman. Being, for the moment, 
unable to find him, the chiefs had time to address 
the excited rabble, and persuade them to postpone 
their intended vengeance. The ambassador, buffeted, 
threatened, and insulted, was conducted to the fort, 
where he was ordered to remain, though, at the same 
time, the Canadian inhabitants were forbidden to ad- 
mit him into their houses. Morris soon discovered 
that this rough treatment was, in a great measure, 
owing to the influence of a deputation of Delaware 
and Shawanoe chiefs, who had recently arrived, bring- 
ing fourteen war-belts of wampum, and exciting the 



472 



BRAD STREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [ Chap. XXVI. 



Miamis to renew their hostilities against the common 
enemy. Thus it was fully apparent that while the 
Delawares and Shawanoes were sending one deputa- 
tion to treat of peace with Bradstreet on Lake Erie, 
they were sending another to rouse the tribes of the 
Illinois to war. From Fort Miamis, the deputation 
had proceeded westward, spreading the contagion 
among all the tribes between the Mississippi and the 
Ohio, declaring that they would never make peace 
with the English, but would fight them as long as 
the sun should shine, and calling on their brethren 
of the Illinois to follow their example. 

Morris had not remained long at the fort, when 
two Miami warriors entered, who, seizing him by the 
arms, and threatening him with a raised tomahawk, 
forced him out of the gate, and led him to the 
bank of the river. As they drew him into the water, 
the conviction flashed across his mind that they in- 
tended to drown him and then take his scalp; but 
he soon saw his mistake, for they led him across the 
stream, which at this season was fordable, and thence 
towards the great Miami village. When they ap- 
proached the lodges, they stopped and began to strip 
him, but grew angry at the difficulty of the task. 
In rage and despair, he himself tore off his uniform. 
The warriors bound his arms behind him with his 
own sash, and drove him before them into the vil- 
lage. Instantly, from all the lodges, the savages ran 
out to receive their prisoner, clustering about him 
like a swarm of angry bees, and uttering their dis- 
cordant death-yells — sounds compared to which the 
nocturnal howlings of starved wolves are gentle and 
melodious. The greater number were eager to kill 
him; but there was a division of opinion, and a 



Chap. XXVI-1 



EMBASSY OF MORRIS. 



473 



clamorous debate ensued. Two of his Canadian at- 
tendants, Godefroy and St. Vincent, had followed 
him to the village, and now ventured to interpose 
with the chiefs in his behalf. Among the latter was 
a nephew of Pontiac, a young man, who, though not 
yet arrived at maturity, shared the bold spirit of his 
heroic kinsman. He harangued the tumultuous crowd, 
declaring that he would not see one of the English 
put to death, when so many of his own relatives were 
in their hands at Detroit. A Miami chief, named 
the Swan, also took part with the prisoner, and cut 
loose his bonds ; but Morris had no sooner begun to 
speak in his own behalf, than another chief, called 
the White Cat, seized him, and bound him fast by 
the neck to a post. Upon this, Pontiac's nephew 
rode up on horseback, severed the cord with his 
hatchet, and released the unfortunate man. " I give 
this Englishman his life," exclaimed the daring boy. 
u If you want English meat, go to Detroit or to the 
lake, and you will find enough of it. What business 
have you with this man, who has come to speak with 
us ? " The current of feeling among the throng now 
began to change ; and, having vented their hatred and 
spite by a profusion of words and blows, they at 
length thrust the ambassador with violence out of 
the village. He succeeded in regaining the fort, 
although, on the way, he was met by one of the In- 
dians, who beat his naked body with a stick. 

He found the Canadian inhabitants of the fort dis- 
posed to befriend him, as far as they could do so 
without danger to themselves ; but his situation was 
still extremely critical. The two warriors, who had 
led him across the river, were constantly lurking 
about, watching an opportunity to kill him; and the 
60 nn* 



474 



BR AD STREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XX YI. 



Kickapoos, whose lodges were pitched on the meadow, 
sent him a message to the effect, that if the Miamis 
did not put him to death, they themselves would do 
so, whenever he should pass their camp. He was 
still on the threshold of his journey, and his final 
point of destination was several hundred miles dis- 
tant; yet, with great resolution, he determined to 
persevere, and, if possible, completely fulfil his mis- 
sion. His Indian and Canadian attendants used 
every means to dissuade him, and in the evening 
held a council with the Miami chiefs, the result of 
which was most discouraging. Morris received mes- 
sage after message, threatening his life should he per- 
sist in his design; and word was brought him that 
several of the Shawanoe deputies were returning to 
the fort, expressly to kill him. Under these circum- 
stances, it would have been madness to persevere ; and, 
reluctantly abandoning his purpose, he retraced his 
steps towards Detroit, where he arrived on the seven- 
teenth of September, fully expecting to find Brad- 
street still encamped in the neighborhood. But that 
agile commander had returned to Sandusky, whither 
Morris, completely exhausted by hardships and suf- 
ferings, was unable to follow him. He hastened, 
however, to send Bradstreet the journal of his un- 
fortunate embassy, accompanied by a letter, in which 
he inveighed, in no very gentle terms, against the 
authors of his misfortunes. 1 

i MS. Letter — Morris to Brad- the vessel, and that she had a hole in 

street, Sept. 18. her bottom. Treachery should be paid 

" The villains have nipped our fair- with treachery ; and it is a more than 

est hopes in the bud. I tremble for ordinary pleasure to deceive those who 

you at Sandusky ; though I was great- would deceive us." 
ly pleased to find you have one of the The above account of Morris's 

vessels with you, and artillery. I wish adventures is drawn from the journal 

the chiefs were assembled on board which he sent to Bradstreet, and from 



Chap. XXVI] 



INACTION OF BR AD STREET. 



475 



Brads tree t had retraced his course to Sandusky, 
to keep his engagement with the Delaware and 
Shawanoe deputies, and await the fulfilment of their 
worthless promise to surrender their prisoners, and 
conclude a definitive treaty of peace. His hopes 
were destined to be defeated. The appointed time 
expired, and not a chief was seen, though, a few days 
after, several warriors came to the camp, with a prom- 
ise that, if Bradstreet would remain quiet, and refrain 
from attacking their villages, they would bring in the 
prisoners in the course of the following week. Brad- 
street accepted their excuses, and, having removed his 
camp to the carrying-place of Sandusky, lay waiting 
in patient expectation. It was here that he received, 
for the first time, a communication from General 
Gage, respecting the preliminary treaty, concluded 
several weeks before. Gage condemned his conduct 
in severe terms, and ordered him to break the en- 
gagements he had made, and advance at once upon 
the enemy, choosing for his first objects of attack 
the Indians living upon the plains of the Scioto. 
The fury of Bradstreet was great on receiving this 
message, and it was not dhninished when the journal 
of Captain Morris was placed in his hands, fully 
proving how signally he had been duped. He was 
in no temper to obey the orders of the commander- 
in-chief; and, to justify himself for his inaction, he 
alleged the impossibility of reaching the Scioto plains 
at that advanced season. Two routes thither were 
open to his choice, one by the Biver Sandusky, and 

the testimony of his Indian and Ca- lars not mentioned by Morris himself, 

nadian attendants, given in Brad- The original journal is in the Lon- 

street's presence, at his camp near don Archives. The other document 

Sandusky. This testimony was re- was found among Sir W. Johnson's 

corded, and contains various particu- papers. 



476 BRAD STREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

the other by the Cayahoga Creek. The water in the 
Sandusky was sunk low with the drought, and the 
carrying-place at the head of Cayahoga Creek was a 
few miles longer than had been represented; yet the 
army were ready for the attempt, and these difficul- 
ties could not have deterred a vigorous commander. 
Under cover of such excuses, Bradstreet remained 
idle at Sandusky for several days, while sickness and 
discontent were rife in his camp. The soldiers com- 
plained of his capricious, peremptory temper, his 
harshness to his troops, and the unaccountable ten- 
derness with which he treated the Sandusky Indians, 
some of whom had not yet made their submission, 
while he enraged his Iroquois allies by his frequent 
rebukes and curses. 

At length, declaring that provisions were failing 
and the season growing late, he resolved to return 
home, and broke up his camp with such precipitancy 
that several soldiers, who had gone out in the morn- 
ing to procure game for the officers, were inhumanly 
left behind. The boats of the army had scarcely en- 
tered Lake Erie, when a storm descended upon them, 
destroying several, and throwing the whole into con- 
fusion. For three days the tempest raged unceas- 
ingly; and when the angry lake began to resume 
its tranquillity, it was found that the remaining 
boats were insufficient to convey the troops. A large 
body of Indians, together with a detachment of pro- 
vincials, were therefore ordered to make their way 
to Niagara along the pathless borders of the lake. 
They accordingly set out, and, after many days of 
hardship, reached their destination; though such had 
been their sufferings, from fatigue, cold, and hunger, 
from wading swamps, swimming creeks and rivers, 



Chap. XXVI/| RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION. 



477 



and pushing their way through tangled thickets, that 
many of the provincials perished miserably in the 
woods. On the fourth of November, seventeen days 
after their departure from Sandusky, the main body 
of the little army arrived in safety at Niagara, and 
the whole, reembarking on Lake Ontario, proceeded 
towards Oswego. 1 Fortune still seemed adverse; for 
a second tempest arose, and one of the schooners, 
crowded with troops, foundered in sight of Oswego, 
though most of the men were saved. The route to 
the settlements was now a short and easy one. On 
their arrival, the regulars went into quarters, while 
the troops levied for the campaign were sent home 
to their respective provinces. 

This expedition, ill conducted as it was, produced 
some beneficial results. The Indians at Detroit had 
been brought to reason, and for the present, at 
least, would probably remain tranquil ; while the 
reestablishment of the posts on the upper lakes 
must necessarily have great effect upon the natives 
of that region. At Sandusky, on the other hand, 
the work had been but half done. The tribes of 
that place felt no respect for the English, while 
those to the southward and westward had been left 
in a state of turbulence, which promised an abun- 
dant harvest of future mischief. 2 In one particular, 
at least, Bradstreet had occasioned serious detriment 
to the English interest. The Iroquois allies, who 
had joined his army, were disgusted by his treatment 
of them, while they were roused to contempt by the 
imbecility of his conduct towards the enemy; and 
thus the efforts of Sir William Johnson to secure 

1 Mante, 535. 

2 MS. Letter — Johnson to the Board of Trade, December 26. 



478 BRADSTREET'S ARMY ON THE LAKES. [Chap. XXVI. 

the attachment of these powerful tribes were in no 
small degree counteracted and neutralized. 1 

While Brads treet's troops were advancing upon 
the lakes, or lying idle in their camp at Sandusky, 
another expedition was in progress at the southward, 
with abler conduct and a more auspicious result. 

i The provincial officers, to whom particulars of his misconduct during 

the command of the Indian allies was the expedition. This curious docu- 

assigned, drew up a paper containing ment was found among the private 

complaints against Bradstreet, and papers of Sir William Johnson. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



BOUQUET FORCES THE DELA WARES AND SHAWANOES 
TO SUE FOR PEACE. 

The scruples of the Quakers, aud the dissensions 
in the provincial government, had so far protracted 
the debates of the Pennsylvanian Assembly, that it 
was late in the spring before supplies were granted 
for the service of the ensuing summer. In the 
mean time, the work of ravage had begun afresh 
upon the borders. The Indians had taken the pre- 
caution to remove all their settlements to the west- 
ern side of the River Muskingum, trusting that the 
impervious forests, with their unnumbered streams, 
would prove a sufficient barrier against invasion. 
Having thus, as they thought, placed their women 
and children in safety, they had flung themselves 
upon the settlements with all the rage and ferocity 
of the previous season. So fierce and active were 
the war-parties on the borders, that the English gov- 
ernor of Pennsylvania had recourse to a measure 
which the frontier inhabitants had long demanded, 
and issued a proclamation, offering a high bounty for 
Indian scalps, whether of men or women; a bar- 
j barous expedient, fruitful of butcheries and murders, 
but incapable of producing any decisive result. 1 

i The following is an extract from that there shall be paid out of the 
1 the proclamation : — moneys lately granted for his majes- 

" I do hereby declare and promise, ty's use, to all and every person and 



480 



BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII, 



Early in the season, a soldier named David Owens, 
who, several years before, had deserted and joined 
the Indians, came to one of the outposts, accom- 
panied by a young provincial recently taken prisoner 
on the Delaware, and bringing five scalps. While 
living among the Indians, Owens had formed a con- 
nection with one of their women, who had borne 
him several children. Growing tired, at length, of 
the forest life, he had become anxious to return to 
the settlements, but feared to do so without first 
having made some atonement for his former deser- 
tion. One night, he had been encamped on the Sus- 
quehanna, with a party consisting of four Shawanoe 
warriors, a boy of the same tribe, his own wife and 
two children, and another Indian woman. The 
young provincial, who came with him to the settle- 



persons not in the pay of this province, 
the following several and respective 
premiums and bounties for the prison- 
ers and scalps of the enemy Indians 
that shall be taken or killed within 
the bounds of this province, as lim- 
ited by the royal charter, or in pur- 
suit from within the said bounds ; 
that is to say, for every male Indian 
enemy above ten years old, who shall 
be taken prisoner, and delivered at 
any forts garrisoned by the troops 
in the pay of this province, or at any 
of the county towns, to the keeper 
of the common jails there, the sum 
of one hundred and fifty Spanish 
dollars, or pieces of eight. For 
every female Indian enemy, taken 
prisoner and brought in as aforesaid, 
and for every male Indian enemy of 
ten years old or under, taken pris- 
oner and delivered as aforesaid, the 
sum of one hundred and thirty pieces 
of eight. For the scalp of every 
male Indian enemy above the age of 
ten years, produced as evidence of 
their being killed, the sum of one 
hundred and thirty-four pieces of 
eight. And for the scalp of every 



female Indian enemy above the age 
of ten years, produced as evidence 
of their being killed, the sum of fifty 
pieces of eight." 

The action of such measures has 
recently been illustrated in the in- 
stance of New Mexico before its 
conquest by the Americans. The 
inhabitants of that country, too tim- 
orous to defend themselves against 
the Apaches and other tribes, who 
descended upon them in frequent 
forays from the neighboring moun- 
tains, took into pay a band of for- 
eigners, chiefly American trappers, 
for whom the Apache lances had no 
such terrors, and, to stimulate their 
exertions, proclaimed a bounty on 
scalps. The success of the meas- 
ure was judged admirable, until it 
was found that the unscrupulous con- 
federates were in the habit of shoot- 
ing down any Indian, whether friend 
or enemy, who came within range of 
their rifles, and that the government 
had been paying rewards for the 
scalps of its own allies and depend- 
ants. 



Chap. XXVII.] 



DAVID OWENS. 



481 



ments, was also present. In the middle of the 
night, Owens arose, and, looking about him, saw, by 
the dull glow of the camp-fire, that all were buried 
in deep sleep. Cautiously awakening the young pro- 
vincial, he told him to leave the place, and lie quiet, 
at a little distance, until he should call him. He 
next stealthily removed the weapons from beside the 
sleeping savages, and concealed them in the woods, 
reserving to himself two loaded rifles. Ee turning to 
the camp, he knelt on the ground between two of 
the yet unconscious warriors, and, pointing a rifle at 
the head of each, touched the triggers, and shot both 
dead at once. Startled by the reports, the survivors 
sprang to their feet in bewildered terror. The two 
remaining warriors bounded into the woods; but the 
women and children, benumbed with fright, had no 
power to escape, and one and all died shrieking 
under the hatchet of the miscreant. His devilish 
work complete, the wretch sat watching until day- 
light among the dead bodies of his children and 
comrades, undaunted by the awful gloom and soli- 
tude of the darkened forest. In the morning, he 
scalped his victims, with the exception of the two 
children, and, followed by the young white man, 
directed his steps towards the settlements, with the 
bloody trophies of his atrocity. His desertion was 
pardoned; he was employed as an interpreter, and 
ordered to accompany the troops on the intended 
expedition. His example is one of many in which 
the worst acts of Indian ferocity have been thrown 
into shade by the enormities of white barbarians. 1 

1 Gordon, Hist. Penn. 625. Rob- " Burnetsfield, June 18th, 1764. 

ison, Narrative. « David Owens was a Corporal in 

Extract from a MS. Letter — Sir Capt. Me Clean's Compy., and lay 




once in Garrison at my House. He 



O O 



482 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 



Colonel Bouquet was now pushing his preparations 
for the campaign with his utmost zeal; but August 
arrived before the provincial troops were in read- 
iness. On the fifth of that month, the whole force 
was united at Carlisle, and consisted of five hundred 
regulars, — most of whom had fought in the battle 
of Bushy Run, of which that day was the anniver- 
sary, — a thousand Pennsylvanians, and a small but 
invaluable corps of Virginia riflemen. After remain- 
ing for a few days at Carlisle, the troops advanced 
to Fort Loudon, which they reached on the thir- 
teenth. Here they were delayed for several weeks, 
and here Bouquet received the strange communica- 
tion from Colonel Bradstreet, in which the latter 
informed him that he had made a preliminary treaty 
with the Belawares and Shawanoes, and that all 
operations against them might now be abandoned. 
We have already seen that Bouquet disregarded this 
message, thinking himself in no way called upon 
to lay aside his plans against an enemy who was 
suing for peace on one side, and butchering and. 
scalping on another. 1 Continuing therefore to advance, 



deserted several times, as I am in- 
formed, & went to live among the 
Delawares & Shawanese, with whose 
language he was acquainted. His 
Father having been long a trader 
amongst them. 

"The circumstances relating to 
his leaving the Indians have been 
told me by several Indians. That 
he went out a hunting with his In- 
dian Wife and several of her rela- 
tions, most of whom, with his Wife, 
he killed and scalped as they slept. 
As he was always much attached to 
Indians, I fancy he began to fear he 
was unsafe amongst them, & killed 
them rather to make his peace with 
the English, than from any dislike 
either to them or their principles." 



i Extract from a MS. Letter — 
Colonel Bouquet to Governor Penn. 

" Fort Loudon, 27th Aug. 1764. 

" Sir: 

"I have the honor to transmit to 
you a letter from Colonel Bradstreet, 
who acquaints me that he has grant- 
ed peace to all the Indians living 
between Lake Erie and the Ohio ; 
but as no satisfaction is insisted 
on, I hope the General will not con- 
firm it, and that I shall not be a 
witness to a transaction which would 
fix an indelible stain upon the Na- 
tion. 

" I therefore take no notice of that 
pretended peace, & proceed forth- 
with on the expedition, fully deter- 



Chap.XXVIL] his message to the delawares. 483 



lie passed in safety the scene of his desperate fight 
of the last summer, and on the seventeenth of Sep- 
tember arrived at Fort Pitt, with no other loss than 
that of a few men picked off from the flanks and 
rear by lurking Indian marksmen. 

Soon after his arrival, a party of Delaware chiefs 
appeared on the farther bank of the river, pretend- 
ing to be deputies sent by their nation to confer 
with the English commander. Three of them, after 
much hesitation, came over to the fort, where, being 
closely questioned, and found unable to give any 
good account of their mission, they were detained as 
spies, while their companions, greatly disconcerted, 
fled back to their villages. Bouquet released one of 
the three captives, and sent him home with the fol- 
lowing message to his people: — 

" I have received an account, from Colonel Brad- 
street, that your nations had begged for peace, which 
he had consented to grant, upon assurance that you 
had recalled all your warriors from our frontiers ; 
and in consequence of this, I would not have pro- 
ceeded against your towns, if I had not heard that, 
in open violation of your engagements, you have 
since murdered several of our people. 

" I was therefore determined to have attacked 
you, as a people whose promises can no more be 
relied on. But I will put it once more in your 
power to save yourselves and your families from 
total destruction, by giving us satisfaction for the 
hostilities committed against us. And first, you are 
to leave the path open for my expresses from hence 
to Detroit; and as I am now to send two men with 

mined to treat as enemies any Del- my way, till I receive contrary orders 
awares or Shawanese I shall find in from the General." 



484 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 

despatches to Colonel Bradstreet, who commands on 
the lakes, I desire to know whether you will send 
two of your people to bring them safe back with 
an answer. And if they receive any injury either 
in going or coming, or if the letters are taken from 
them, I will immediately put the Indians now in 
my power to death, and will show no mercy, for 
the future, to any of your nations that shall fall into 
my hands. I allow you ten days to have my letters 
delivered at Detroit, and ten days to bring me back 
an answer." 1 

The liberated spy faithfully discharged his mission, 
and the firm, decisive tone of the message had a 
profound effect upon the hostile warriors; clearly 
indicating, as it did, with what manner of man they 
had to deal. Many, who were before clamorous for 
battle, were now ready to sue for peace, as the only 
means to avert their ruin. 

Before the army was ready to march, two Iroquois 
warriors came to the fort, pretending friendship, but 
anxious, in reality, to retard the expedition until the 
approaching winter should make it impossible to 
proceed. They represented the numbers of the 
enemy, and the extreme difficulty of penetrating so 
rough a country, and affirmed that if the troops 
remained quiet, the hostile tribes, who were already 
collecting their prisoners, would soon arrive to make 
their submission. Bouquet turned a deaf ear to 
their advice, and sent them to inform the Delawares 
and Shawanoes that he was on his way to chastise 
them for their perfidy and cruelty, unless they 
should save themselves by an ample and sj)eedy 
atonement. 



1 Hutchins, Account of Bouquet's Expedition, 5. 



Chap. XXVII.] THE MAECH OF HIS AEMY. 



485 



Early in October, the troops left Fort Pitt, and 
began their westward march into a wilderness which 
no army had ever before sought to penetrate. En- 
cumbered with their camp equipage, with droves of 
cattle and sheep for subsistence, and a long train 
of pack horses laden with provision, their progress 
was tedious and difficult, and seven or eight miles 
were the ordinary measure of a day's march. The 
woodsmen of Virginia, veteran hunters and Indian- 
fighters, were thrown far out in front, and on either 
flank, scouring the forest to detect any sign of a 
lurking ambuscade. The pioneers toiled in the van, 
hewing their way through woods and thickets, while 
the army dragged its weary length behind them 
through the forest, like a serpent creeping through 
tall grass. The surrounding country, whenever a 
casual opening in the matted foliage gave a glimpse 
of its features, disclosed scenery of wild, primeval 
beauty. Sometimes the army skirted the margin 
of the Ohio, with its broad eddying current and the 
bright landscape of its shores. Sometimes they de- 
scended into the thickest gloom of the woods, damp, 
still, and cool as the recesses of a cavern, where the 
black soil oozed beneath the tread, where the rough 
columns of the forest seemed to exude a clammy sweat, 
and the slimy mosses were trickling with moisture, 
while the carcasses of prostrate trees, green with the 
decay of a century, sank into pulp at the lightest 
pressure of the foot. More frequently, the forest was 
of a fresher growth, and the restless leaves of young 
maples and basswood shook down spots of sunlight 
on the marching columns. Sometimes they waded 
the clear current of a stream, with its vistas of arch- 
ing foliage and. sparkling water. There were intervals, 



486 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 



but these were rare, when, escaping for a moment 
from the labyrinth of woods, they emerged into the 
light of an open meadow, rich with herbage, and 
girdled by a zone of forest, gladdened by the notes 
of birds, and enlivened, it may be, by grazing herds 
of deer. These spots, welcome to the forest travel- 
ler as an oasis to a wanderer in the desert, form the 
precursors of the prairies, which, growing wider and 
more frequent as one advances westward, expand at 
last into the boundless plains beyond the Mississippi. 

On the tenth day after leaving Fort Pitt, the army 
reached the River Muskingum, and approached the 
objects of their march, the homes and sanctuaries of 
the barbarian warriors, who had turned whole dis- 
tricts into desolation. Their progress had met no 
interruption. A few skulking Indians had hovered 
about them, but, alarmed by their numbers, feared 
to venture an attack. The Indian cabins which they 
passed on their way were deserted by their tenants, 
who had joined their western brethren. When the 
troops crossed the Muskingum, they saw, a little be- 
low the forcling-place, the abandoned wigwams of the 
village of Tuscaroras, recently the abode of more 
than a hundred families, who had fled in terror at 
the approach of the invaders. 

Bouquet was in the heart of the enemy's country. 
Their villages, except some remoter settlements of 
the Shawanoes, all lay within a few days' march, and 
no other choice was left them than to sue for peace, 
or risk the desperate chances of battle against a 
commander who, a year before, with a third of his 
present force, had signally routed them at the fight 
of Bushy Run. The vigorous and active among them 
might, it is true, escape by flight ; but, in doing so, 



Chap. XXVII.] 



TEEEOE OF THE EXEMY. 



487 



they must abandon to the victors their dwellings, and 
their secret hordes of corn. They were confounded at 
the multitude of the invaders, exaggerated, doubtless, 
in the reports which reached their villages, and amazed 
that an army should force its way so deep into the 
forest fastnesses, which they had always deemed im- 
pregnable. They knew, on the other hand, that Colo- 
nel Bradstreet was still at Sanduskv, in a -position to 
assail them in the rear. Thus pressed on both sides, 
they saw that they must submit, and bend their stub- 
born pride to beg for peace, not alone with words 
which cost nothing, and would have been worth noth- 
ing, but by the delivery of prisoners, and the surrender 
of chiefs and warriors as hostages of good faith. Bou- 
quet had sent two soldiers from Fort Pitt with letters 
to Colonel Bradstreet ; but these men, hi defiance of 
his threats, had been seized and detained by the 
Deiawares. They now appeared at his camp, sent 
back by their captors, with a message to the effect 
that within a few days the chiefs would arrive and 
hold a conference with hhn. 

Bouquet continued his march down the valley of 
the Muskingum, until he reached a spot where the 
broad meadows, which bordered the river, would sup- 
ply abundant grazing for the cattle and horses, while 
the terraces above, shaded by forest-trees, offered a 
convenient site for encampment. Here he began to 
erect a small palisade work, as a depot for stores and 
baggage. Before the task was complete, a deputation 
of chiefs arrived, bringing word that their warriors 
were encamped, in great numbers, about eight miles 
from the spot, and desiring Bouquet to appoint the 
time and place for a council. He ordered them to 
meet him, on the next day, at a point near the margin 



488 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTEY. [Chap. XXVII. 



of the river, a little below the camp; and thither a 
party of men were at once despatched, to erect a sort 
of rustic arbor of saplings and the boughs of trees, 
large enough to shelter the English officers and the 
Indian chiefs. With a host of warriors in the neigh- 
borhood, who would gladly break in upon them, 
could they hope that the attack would succeed, it 
behoved the English to use every precaution. A 
double guard was placed, and a stringent discipline 
enforced. 

In the morning, the little army moved in battle 
order to the place of council. Here the principal 
officers assumed their seats under the canopy of 
branches, while the glittering array of the troops 
was drawn out on the meadow in front, in such a 
manner as to produce the most imposing effect on the 
minds of the Indians, in whose eyes the sight of fif- 
teen hundred men under arms was a spectacle equally 
new and astounding. The perfect order and silence 
of the far-extended lines, the ridges of bayonets flash- 
ing in the sun, the fluttering tartans of the Highland 
regulars, the bright red uniform of the Royal Ameri- 
cans, the darker garb and duller trappings of the 
Pennsylvania troops, and the bands of Virginia back- 
woodsmen, who, in fringed hunting-frocks and Indian 
moccasons, stood leaning carelessly on their rifles, — 
all these combined to form a scene of military pomp 
and power not soon to be forgotten. 

At the appointed hour, the deputation appeared. 
The most prominent among them were Iviashuta, 
chief of the band of Senecas who had deserted their 
ancient homes to form a colony on the Ohio; Cus- 
taloga, chief of the Deiawares ; and the head chief 
of the Shawanoes, whose name sets orthography at 



Chap. XXVII.] SPEECH OF THE DELAWARE ORATOR. 489 



defiance. As they approached, painted and plumed in 
all their savage pomp, they looked neither to the 
right hand nor to the left, not deigning, under the 
eyes of their enemy, to cast even a glance at the 
military display around them. They seated them- 
selves, with stern, impassive looks, and an air of 
sullen dignity, while their black and sombre brows 
betrayed the hatred still rankling in their hearts. 
After a few minutes had been consumed in the in- 
dispensable ceremony of smoking, Turtle Heart, a 
chief of the Delawares, and orator of the deputation, 
rose, bearing in his hand a bag containing the belts 
of wampum. Addressing himself to the English com- 
mander, he spoke as follows, delivering a belt for 
every clause of his speech : - — 

" Brother, I speak in behalf of the three nations 
whose chiefs are here present. With this belt I open 
your ears and your hearts, that you may listen to 
my words. 

" Brother, this war was neither your fault nor 
ours. It was the work of the nations who live to 
the westward, and of our wild young men, who would 
have killed us if we had resisted them. We now put 
away all evil from our hearts, and we hope that your 
mind and ours will once more be united together. 

"Brother, it is the will of the Great Spirit that 
there should be peace between us. We, on our side, 
now take fast hold of the chain of friendship ; but, as 
we cannot hold it alone, we desire that you will take 
hold also, and we must look up to the Great Spirit, 
that he may make us strong, and not permit this 
chain to fall from our hands. 

" Brother, these words come from our hearts, and 
not from our lips. You desire that we should deliver 
62 



490 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 

up your flesh and blood now captive among us ; and, 
to show you that we are sincere, we now return you 
as many of them as we. have at present been able to 
bring. [Here he delivered eighteen white prisoners, 
who had been brought by the deputation to the 
council.] You shall receive the rest as soon as w r e 
have time to collect them." 1 

In such figurative terms, not devoid of dignity, did 
the Indian orator sue for peace to his detested ene- 
mies. When he had concluded, the chiefs of every 
tribe rose in succession, to express concurrence hi 
what he had said, each delivering a belt of wampum 
and a bundle of small sticks, the latter designed to 
indicate the number of English prisoners whom his 
followers retained, and whom he pledged himself to 
surrender. In an Indian council, when one of the 
speakers has advanced a matter of weight and 
urgency, the other party defers his reply to the 
following day, that due time may be allowed for 
deliberation. Accordingly, in the present instance, 
the council adjourned to the next morning, each 
party retiring to its respective camp. But, when day 
dawned, a change was apparent in the aspects of the 
weather. The valley of the Muskingum was filled 
with driving mist and rain, and the meeting was 



i This speech is taken from the 
official journals of Colonel Bouquet, 
a copy of which is preserved in the 
archives of Pennsylvania, at Har- 
risburg, engrossed, if the writer's 
memory does not fail him, in one of 
the volumes of the Provincial Rec- 
ords. The narrative of Hutchins, 
which has often been cited, is chiefly 
founded upon the authority of these 
documents ; and the writer has used 
his materials with great skill and 



faithfulness, though occasionally it 
has been found advisable to have re- 
course to the original journals, to 
supply some omission or obscurity in 
Hutchins' compilation. This writer's 
personal familiarity with the Indian 
country, and his acquaintance with 
the actors in these scenes, have, how- 
ever, given a life and character to 
his narrative, which is altogether 
wanting in the formal pages of an 
official report. 



Chap. XXVIL] 



REPLY OE BOUQUET. 



491 



in consequence postponed. On the third day, the 
landscape brightened afresh, the troops marched once 
more to the place of council, and the Indian chiefs 
convened to hear the reply of their triumphant foe. 
It was not of a kind to please them. The first 
opening words gave an earnest of what was to come ; 
for Bouquet discarded the usual address of an In- 
dian harangue, fathers, brothers, or children, — terms 
which imply a relation of friendship, or a desire 
to conciliate, — and adopted a sterner and more dis- 
tant form. 

" Sachems, war-chiefs, and warriors, 1 the excuses 
you have offered are frivolous and unavailing, and 
your conduct is without defence or apology. You 
could not have acted as you pretend to have done 
through fear of the western nations; for, had you 
stood faithful to us, you knew that we would have 
protected you against their anger; and as for your 
young men, it was your duty to punish them, if they 
did amiss. You have drawn down our just resent- 
ment by your violence and perfidy. Last summer, in 
cold blood, and in a time of profound peace, you 
robbed and murdered the traders, who had come 
among you at your own express desire. You at- 
tacked Fort Pitt, which was built by your consent, 
and you destroyed our outposts and garrisons, when- 
ever treachery could place them in your power. 
You assailed our troops- — the same who now stand 

1 The sachem is the civil chief, the civil and military functions are 

who directs the counsels of the tribe, discharged by the same person, as in 

and governs in time of peace. His the instance of Pontiac himself, 
office, on certain conditions, is heredi- The speech of Bouquet, as given 

tary, while the war-chief, or military above, is taken, with some omission 

leader, acquires his authority solely and condensation, from the journals 

by personal merit, and seldom trans- mentioned in the preceding note, 
mits it to his offspring. Sometimes 



492 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVEL 

before you — in the woods at Bushy Run ; and, when 
we had routed and driven you off, you sent your 
scalping-parties to the frontier, and murdered many 
hundreds of our people. Last July, when the other 
nations came to ask for peace, at Niagara, you not 
only refused to attend, but sent an insolent message 
instead, in which you expressed a pretended contempt 
for the English, and, at the same time, told the sur- 
rounding nations that you would never lay down the 
hatchet. Afterwards, when Colonel Brads treet came 
up Lake Erie, you sent a deputation of your chiefs, 
and concluded a treaty with him; but your engage- 
ments were no sooner made than broken; and from 
that day to this, you have scalped and butchered us 
without ceasing. Nay, I am informed that, when you 
heard that this army was penetrating the woods, you 
mustered your warriors to attack us, and were only- 
deterred from doing so when you found how greatly 
we outnumbered you. This is not the only instance 
of your bad faith ; for, since the beginning of the last 
war, you have made repeated treaties with us, and 
promised to give up your prisoners ; but you have 
never kept these engagements, nor any others. We 
shall endure this no longer; and I am now come 
among you to force you to make atonement for the 
injuries you have done us. I have brought with me 
the relatives of those you have murdered. They are 
eager for vengeance, and nothing restrains them from 
taking it but my assurance that this army shall not 
leave your country until you have given them an 
ample satisfaction. 

"Your allies, the Ottawas, Ojibwas, and Wyan- 
clots, have begged for peace; the Six Nations have 
leagued themselves with us; the great lakes and 



Chap. XXVII.] EFFECT OF BOUQUET'S SPEECH 



493 



rivers around you are all in our possession, and your 
friends the French are in subjection to us, and can 
do no more to aid you. You are all in our power, 
and if we choose we can exterminate you from the 
earth ; but the English are a merciful and generous 
people, averse to shed the blood even of their great- 
est enemies ; and if it were possible that you could 
convince us that you sincerely repent of your past 
perfidy, and that we could depend on your good be- 
havior for the future, you might yet hope for mercy 
and peace. If I find that you faithfully execute the 
conditions which I shall prescribe, I will not treat 
you with the severity you deserve. 

" I give you twelve days from this date to deliver 
into my hands all the prisoners in your possession, 
without exception; Englishmen, Frenchmen, women, 
and children ; whether adopted into your tribes, mar- 
ried, or living among you under any denomination 
or pretence whatsoever. And you are to furnish 
these prisoners with clothing, provision, and horses, 
to carry them to Fort Pitt. When you have fully 
complied with these conditions, you shall then know 
on what terms you may obtain the peace you sue 
for." 

This speech, with the stern voice and countenance 
of the speaker, told with chilling effect upon the 
awe-stricken hearers. It quelled their native haugh- 
tiness, and sunk them to the depths of humiliation, 
Their speeches in reply were dull and insipid, void 
of that savage eloquence, which, springing from a 
wild spirit of independence, has so often distinguished 
the forest orators. Judging the temper of their ene- 
mies by their own insatiable thirst for vengeance, 
they hastened, with all the alacrity of terror, to fulfil 



494 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 

the prescribed conditions, and avert the threatened 
ruin. They dispersed to their different villages, to 
collect and bring in the prisoners ; while Bouquet, 
on his part, knowing that his best security for their 
good faith was to keep up the alarm which his de- 
cisive measures had created, determined to march yet 
nearer to their settlements. Still following the course 
of the Muskingum, he descended to a spot near its 
confluence with its main branch, which might be re- 
garded as a central point with respect to the sur- 
rounding Indian villages. Here, with the exception 
of the distant Shawanoe settlements, they were all 
within reach of his hand, and he could readily chas- 
tise the first attempt at deceit or evasion. The 
principal chiefs of each tribe had been forced to 
accompany him as hostages. 

For the space of a day, hundreds of axes were 
busy at their work. The trees were felled, the ground 
cleared, and, with marvellous rapidity, a town sprang 
up in the heart of the wilderness, martial in aspect 
and rigorous in discipline; with storehouses, hospi- 
tals, and works of defence, rude sylvan cabins min- 
gled with white tents, and the forest rearing its 
sombre rampart round the whole. On one side of 
this singular encampment was a range of buildings, 
designed to receive the expected prisoners; and ma- 
trons, brought for this purpose with the army, were 
appointed to take charge of the women and children 
among them. At the opposite end, a canopy of 
branches, sustained on the upright trunks of young 
trees, formed a rude council-hall, in keeping with the 
savage assembly for whose reception it was designed. 

And now, issuing from the forest, came warriors, 
conducting troops of prisoners, or leading captive 



Chap, XXVII.] IVIES SAGE FROM BRAD STREET. 



495 



children, — wild young barbarians, born perhaps 
among themselves, and scarcely to be distinguished 
from their own. Yet, seeing the sullen reluctance 
which the Indians soon betrayed in this ungrateful 
task, Bouquet thought it expedient to stimulate their 
efforts by sending detachments of soldiers to each 
of the villages, still retaining the chiefs in pledge 
for their safety. About this time, a party of friendly 
Indians arrived with a letter from Colonel Brad- 
street, dated at Sandusky. The writer declared that 
he was unable to remain longer in the Indian coun- 
try, and was on the point of retiring down Lake 
Erie with his army; a movement which, at the least, 
was of doubtful necessity, and which might have in- 
volved the most disastrous consequences. Had the 
tidings been received but a few days sooner, the 
whole effect of Bouquet's measures would probably 
have been destroyed, the Indians encouraged to re- 
sistance, and the war brought to the arbitration of a 
battle, which must needs have been a fierce and 
bloody one. But, happily for both parties, Bouquet 
now had his enemies firmly in his grasp, and the 
boldest warrior dared not violate the truce. 

The messengers who brought the letter of Brad- 
street brought also the tidings that peace was made 
with the northern Indians, but stated, at the same 
time, that these tribes had murdered many of their 
captives, and given up few of the remainder, so that 
no small number were still within their power. The 
conduct of Bradstreet in this matter was the more 
disgraceful, since he had been encamped for weeks 
almost within gunshot of the Wyandot villages at 
Sandusky, where most of the prisoners were detained. 
Bouquet, on his part, though separated from this place 



496 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTKY. [Chap. XXVII. 

by a journey of many days, resolved to take upon him- 
self the duty which his brother officer had strangely 
neglected. He sent an embassy to Sandusky, de- 
manding that the prisoners should be surrendered. 
This measure was in a great degree successful. He 
despatched messengers soon after to the principal 
Shawanoe village, on the Scioto, distant about eighty 
miles from his camp, to rouse the inhabitants to a 
greater activity than they seemed inclined to dis- 
play. This was a fortunate step, for the Shawanoes 
of the Scioto, who had been guilty of atrocious cru- 
elties during the war, had conceived the idea that 
they were excluded from the general amnesty, and 
marked out for destruction. This notion had been 
propagated, and perhaps suggested, by the French 
traders in their villages; and so thorough was the 
conviction of the Shawanoes, that they came to the 
desperate purpose of murdering their prisoners, and 
marching, with all the warriors they could muster, to 
attack the English. This plan was no sooner formed 
than the French traders opened their stores of bul- 
lets and gunpowder, and dealt them out freely to the 
Indians. Bouquet's messengers came in time to pre- 
vent the catastrophe, and relieve the terrors of the 
Shawanoes, by the assurance that peace would be 
granted to them on the same conditions as to the rest. 
Thus encouraged, they abandoned their design, and 
set out with lighter hearts for the English camp, 
bringing with them a portion of their prisoners. 
When about half way on their journey, they were 
met by an Indian runner, who told them that a 
soldier had been killed in the woods, and their tribe 
charged with the crime. On hearing this, their fear 
revived, and with it their former purpose. Having 



Chap. XXVII.J SUBMISSION OF THE SHAWANOES. 



497 



collected their prisoners in a meadow, they sur- 
rounded the miserable wretches, armed with guns, 
war-clubs, and bows and arrows, and prepared to 
put them to death. But another runner arrived 
before the butchery began, and, assuring them that 
what they had heard was false, prevailed on them 
once more to proceed. They pursued their journey 
without farther interruption, and, coming in safety 
to the camp, delivered the prisoners whom they had 
brought. 

These by no means included the whole number 
of their captives, for nearly a hundred were of ne- 
cessity left behind, because they belonged to warriors 
who had gone to the Illinois to procure arms and 
ammunition from the French ; and there is no au- 
thority in an Indian community powerful enough to 
deprive the meanest warrior of his property, even in 
circumstances of the greatest public exigency. This 
was clearly understood by the English commander, 
and he therefore received the submission of the 
Shawanoes, though not without compelling them to 
deliver hostages for the future surrender of the re- 
maining prisoners. 

Band after band of captives had been daily ar- 
riving, until upwards of two hundred were now col- 
lected in the camp ; including, as far as could be 
ascertained, all who had been in the hands of the 
Indians, excepting those belonging to the absent 
warriors of the Shawanoes. Up to this time, Bou- 
quet had maintained a stern and rigorous demeanor, 
repressing the spirit of clemency and humanity 
I which eminently distinguished him, refusing all 
friendly intercourse with the Indians, and telling 
them that he should treat them as enemies until 
63 p p * 



498 BOUQUET m THE IXDIAX COUNTRY. [Chap.XXYTL 



they had fully complied with all the required condi- 
tions. In this, he displayed his knowledge of their 
character ; for, like all warlike savages, they are 
extremely prone to interpret lenity and moderation 
into timidity and indecision; and he who, from 
good nature or mistaken philanthropy, is betrayed 
into yielding a point which he has before insisted 
on, may have deep cause to rue it. As their own 
dealings with their enemies are not leavened with 
such humanizing ingredients, they are seldom able 
to comprehend them; and to win over an Indian 
foe by kindness should only be attempted by one 
who has already given indubitable proofs of power, 
and established an unanswerable claim to respect 
and obedience. 

But now, when every condition was satisfied, such 
inexorable rigor was no longer demanded ; and 
having convoked the chiefs in the sylvan council- 
house, Bouquet signified his willingness to receive 
their offers of peace. 

" Brother," began the Indian orator, i; with this 
belt of wampum I dispel the black cloud that has 
hung so long over our heads, that the sunshine of 
peace may once more descend to warm and gladden 
us. I wipe the tears from your eyes, and condole 
with you on the loss of your brethren who have 
perished in this war. I gather their bones together, 
and cover them deep in the earth, that the sight of 
them may no longer bring sorrow to your hearts ; 
and I scatter dry leaves over the spot, that it may 
depart forever from memory. 

" The path of peace, which once ran between 
your dwellings and mine, has of late been choked 
with thorns and briers, so that no one could pass 



Chap. XXVII] SPEECH OF THE INDIAN ORATOR. 



499 



that way; and we have both almost forgotten that 
such a path had ever been. I now clear away all 
these obstructions, and make a broad, smooth road, 
so that you and I may freely visit each other, as 
our fathers used to do. I kindle a great council- 
tire, whose smoke shall rise to heaven, in view of 
all the nations, while you and I sit together and 
smoke the peace-pipe at its blaze." 1 

In this strain, the orator of each tribe, in turn, 



1 An Indian council, on solemn 
occasions, is always opened with 
preliminary forms, sufficiently weari- 
some and tedious, but made indis- 
pensable by immemorial custom ; for 
this people are as much bound by 
their conventional usages as the 
most artificial children of civiliza- 
tion. The forms are varied to some 
extent, according to the imagination 
and taste of the speaker; but in all 
essential respects they are closely 
similar, throughout the tribes of Al- 
gonquin and Iroquois lineage. They 
run somewhat as follows, each sen- 
tence being pronounced with great 
solemnity, and confirmed by the de- 
livery of a wampum belt. Brothers, 
with this belt I open your ears that 
you may hear — I remove grief and 
sorrow from your hearts — I draw 
from your feet the thorns which 
have pierced them as you journeyed 
thither — I clean the seats of the 
council-house, that you may sit at 
ease — I wash your head and body, 
that your spirits may be refreshed — 
I condole with you on the loss of 
the friends who have died since we 
last met — I wipe out any blood 
which may have been spilt between 
us. This ceremony, which, by the 
delivery of so many belts of wam- 
pum, entailed no small expense, was 
never used except on the most im- 
portant occasions ; and at the coun- 
cils with Colonel Bouquet, the angry 
warriors seem wholly to have dis- 
pensed with it. 

An Indian orator is provided with 



a stock of metaphors, which he al- 
ways makes use of for the expres- 
sion of certain ideas. Thus, to 
make war is to raise the hatchet ; to 
make peace is to take hold of the 
chain of friendship ; to deliberate is 
to kindle the council-fire; to cover 
the bones of the dead is to make 
reparation and gain forgiveness for 
the act of killing them. A state of 
war and disaster is typified by a 
black cloud; a state of peace, by 
bright sunshine, or by an open path 
between the two nations. 

The orator seldom speaks without 
careful premeditation of what he is 
about to say; and his memory is 
refreshed by the belts of wampum, 
which he delivers after every clause 
in his harangue, as a pledge of the 
sincerity and truth of his words. 
These belts are carefully preserved 
by the hearers, as a substitute for 
written records ; a use for which 
they are the better adapted, as they 
are often worked with hieroglyphics 
expressing the meaning they are 
designed to preserve. Thus, at a 
treaty of peace, the principal belt 
often bears the figures of an Indian 
and a white man holding a chain 
between thern. 

For the nature and uses of wam- 
pum, see note, ante, p. 165. 

Though a good memory is an es- 
sential qualification of an Indian ora- 
tor, it would be unjust not to observe 
that striking outbursts of spontaneous 
eloquence have sometimes proceeded 
from their lips. 



500 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTEY. [Chap. XXVII. 



expressed the purpose of his people to lay down 
their arms, and live, for the future, in friendship with 
the English. Every deputation received a separate 
audience, and the successive conferences were thus 
extended through several days. To each and all, 
Bouquet made a similar reply, in words to the fol- 
lowing effect : — 

' ; By your full compliance with the conditions 
which I imposed, 3*011 have satisfied me of your sin- 
cerity, and I now receive you once more as brethren. 
The long, my master, has commissioned me, not to 
make treaties for him, but to fight his battles ; and 
though I now offer you peace, it is not in my power 
to settle its precise terms and conditions. For this, 
I refer you to Sir William Johnson, his majesty's 
agent and superintendent for Indian affairs, who will 
settle with you the articles of peace, and determine 
every thing in relation to trade. Two things, how- 
ever, I shall insist on. And, first, you are to give 
hostages, as security that you will preserve good 
faith, and send, without delay, a deputation of your 
chiefs to Sir William Johnson. In the next place, 
these chiefs are to be fully empowered to treat in 
behalf of your nation, and you will bind yourselves 
to adhere strictly to every tiling they shall agree 
upon hi your behalf." 

These demands were readily complied with. Hos- 
tages were given, and chiefs appointed for the em- 
bassy; and now, for the first time, Bouquet, to the 
great relief of the Indians, — for they doubted his 
intentions, — extended to them the hand of friend- 
ship, which he had so long withheld. A prominent 
chief of the Delawares, too proud to sue for peace, 
had refused to attend the council, on which Bouquet 



Chap. XXVIL] THE SHAWANOES— THEIR HAUGHTINESS. 501 



ordered him to be deposed, and a successor, of 
a less obdurate spirit, installed in bis place. The 
Shawanoes were the last of the tribes admitted to a 
hearing; and the demeanor of their orator clearly 
evinced the haughty reluctance with which he 
stooped to ask peace of his mortal enemies. 

" When you came among us," such were his con- 
cluding words, "you came with a hatchet raised to 
strike us. We now take it from your hand, and 
throw it up to the Great Spirit, that he may do 
with it what shall seem good in his sight. We 
hope that you, who are warriors, will take hold of 
the chain of friendship which we now extend to 
you. We, who are also warriors, will take hold as 
you do, and we will think no more of war, in pity 
for our women, children, and old men." 1 

On this occasion, the Shawanoe chiefs, expressing 
a hope for a renewal of the friendship which in 
former years had subsisted between their people and 
the English, displayed the dilapidated parchments of 
several treaties made between their ancestors and the 
descendants of William Penn — documents, some of 



1 The Shawanoe speaker, in ex- 
pressing his intention of disarming 
his enemy by laying aside his own 
designs of war, makes use of an un- 
usual metaphor. To bury the hatch- 
et is the figure in common use on 
such occasions, but he adopts a form 
of speech which he regards as more 
significant and emphatic, — that of 
throwing it up to the Great Spirit. 
Unwilling to confess that he yields 
through fear of the enemy, he pro- 
fesses to wish for peace merely for 
the sake of his women and children. 

At the great council at Lancaster, 
in 1762, a chief of the Oneidas, 
anxious to express, in the strongest 



terms, the firmness of the peace 
which had been concluded, had re- 
course to the following singular 
figure : "In the country of the 
Oneidas there is a great pine-tree, 
so huge and old that half its 
branches are dead with time. I tear 
it up by the roots, and, looking down 
into the hole, I see a dark stream of 
water, flowing with a strong current, 
deep under ground. Into this stream 
I fling the hatchet, and the current 
sweeps it away, no man knows 
whither. Then I plant the tree 
again where it stood before, and 
thus this war will be ended for- 
ever." 



502 



BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 



which, had been preserved among them for more 
than half a century, with all the scrupulous respect 
they are prone to exhibit for such ancestral records. 
They were told, that, since they had not delivered 
all their prisoners, they could scarcely expect to 
meet the same indulgence which had been extended 
to their brethren ; but that, nevertheless, in full 
belief of their sincerity, the English would grant 
them peace, on condition of their promising to sur- 
render the remaining captives early hi the following 
spring, and giving up six of their chiefs as hostages. 
These conditions were agreed to; and it may be 
added that, at the appointed time, all the prisoners 
who had been left in their hands, to the number of 
a hundred, were brought in to Fort Pitt, and deliv- 
ered up to the commanding officer. 1 

From the hard formalities and rigid self-control of 
an Indian council-house, where the struggles of fear, 
rage, and hatred were deep buried beneath a surface 
of iron immobility, we turn to scenes of a widely 
different nature ; an exhibition of mingled and con- 
trasted passions, more worthy the pen of the dram- 
atist than of the historian, who, restricted to the 
meagre outline of recorded authority, can reflect but 
a feeble image of the truth. In the ranks of the 
Pennsylvania troops, and among the Virginia rifle- 
men, were the fathers, brothers, and husbands of 
those whose rescue from captivity was a chief object 
of the march. Ignorant what had befallen them, 
and doubtful whether they were yet among the 

1 Besides the authorities before accompanied him have been exam- 
mentioned in relation to these trans- ined. For General Gage's summary 
actions, several manuscript letters of the results of the campaign, see 
from Bouquet and the officers who Appendix, F. 



Chap. XXVII.] SCENES AT THE ENGLISH CAMP. 



503 



living, these men had joined the army, in the fever- 
ish hope of winning them back to home and civil- 
ization. Perhaps those whom they sought had per- 
ished by the elaborate torments of the stake ; perhaps 
by the more merciful hatchet ; or perhaps they still 
dragged out a wretched life in the midst of a savage 
horde. There were instances in which whole fam- 
ilies had been carried off at once. The old, the 
sick, or the despairing, had been tomahawked as 
useless encumbrances, while the rest, pitilessly forced 
asunder, were scattered through every quarter of the 
wilderness. It was a strange and moving sight, 
when troop after troop of prisoners arrived in suc- 
cession—the meeting of husbands with wives, and 
fathers with children, the reunion of broken families, 
long separated in a disastrous captivity ; and on the 
other hand, the agonies of those who learned tidings 
of death and horror, or groaned under the torture 
of protracted suspense. Women, frantic between 
hope and fear, were rushing hither and thither, in 
search of those whose tender limbs had, perhaps, 
long since fattened the cubs of the she wolf; or 
were pausing in an agony of doubt, before some 
sunburnt young savage, who, startled at the haggard 
apparition, shrank from his forgotten parent, and 
clung to the tawny breast of his adopted mother. 
Others were divided between delight and anguish : 
on the one hand, the joy of an unexpected recogni- 
tion; and on the other, the misery of realized fears, 
or the more intolerable pangs of doubts not yet re- 
solved. Of all the spectators of this tragic drama, 
few were obdurate enough to stand unmoved. The 
roughest soldiers felt the contagious sympathy, and 
softened into unwonted tenderness. 



504 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 

Among the children brought in for surrender, 
there were some, who, captured several years before, 
as early, perhaps, as the French war, had lost every 
recollection of friends and home. Terrified by the 
novel sights around them, by the flash and glitter 
of arms, and, above all, by the strange complexion 
of the pale-faced warriors, they screamed and struggled 
lustily when consigned to the hands of their rela- 
tives. There were young women, too, who had 
become the partners of Indian husbands, and now, 
with all their hybrid offspring, were led reluctantly 
into the presence of fathers or brothers, whose 
images were almost blotted from their memory. 
They stood agitated and bewildered, the revival of 
old affections, and the rush of dormant memories, 
painfully contending with more recent attachments, 
and the shame of their real or fancied disgrace ; 
while their Indian lords looked on, scarcely less 
moved than they, yet hardening themselves with 
savage stoicism, and standing in the midst of their 
enemies, imperturbable as statues of bronze. These 
women were compelled to return with their children 
to the settlements ; yet they all did so with reluc- 
tance, and several afterwards made their escape, 
eagerly hastening back to their warrior husbands, 
and. the toils and vicissitudes of an Indian wigwam. 1 

1 Penn. Hist. Col. 267. Haz. Pa. an instance of attachment to Indian 

Reg. IV. 390. M'Culloch, Narra- life similar to those mentioned 

tive. M'Culloch was one of the above. After the conclusion of hos- 

prisoners surrendered to Bouquet, tilities, learning that she was to be 

His narrative first appeared in a pam- given up to the whites, in accordance 

phlet form, and has since been repub- with a treaty, she escaped into the 

lished in the Incidents of Border woods with her half-breed children, 

Warfare, and other similar collec- and remained hidden, in great dismay 

tions. The autobiography of Mary and agitation, until the search was 

Jemison, a woman captured by the over. She lived to an advanced age, 

Senecas during the French war, and but never lost her attachment to the 

twice married among them, contains Indian life. 



Chap. XXYIL] SCENES AT THE ENGLISH CAMP. 



505 



Day after day brought fresh renewals of these 
scenes, deepening in interest as they drew towards 
their close. A few individual incidents have been 
recorded and preserved. A young Virginian, robbed 
of his wife but a few months before, had volun- 
teered in the expedition with the faint hope of 
recovering her, and, after long suspense, had recog- 
nized her among a troop of prisoners, bearing in her 
arms a child born during her captivity. But the 
joy of the meeting, was bitterly alloyed by the loss 
of a former child, not two years old, captured with 
the mother, but soon taken from her, and carried, 
she could not tell whither. Days passed on ; they 
could learn no tidings of its fate, and the mother, 
harrowed with terrible imaginations, was almost driven 
to despair, when, at length, she discovered her child 
in the arms of an Indian warrior, and snatched it 
with an irrepressible cry of transport. 

"When the army, on its homeward march, reached 
the town of Carlisle, those who had been unable to 
follow the expedition came thither in numbers, to 
inquire for the friends they had lost. Among the 
rest was an old woman, whose daughter had been 
carried off nine years before. In the crowd of 
female captives, she discovered one in whose wild 
and swarthy features she discerned the altered linea- 
ments of her child ; but the girl, who had almost 
forgotten her native tongue, returned no answering 
sign of recognition to her eager words, and the old 
woman bitterly complained that the daughter, whoni 
she had so often sung to sleep on her knee, had 
forgotten her in her old age. The humanity of 
Bouquet suggested an expedient. " Sing the song 
that you used to sing to her when a child." The 
64 QQ 



506 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 



old woman obeyed, and a sudden start, a look of 
bewilderment, and a passionate flood of tears, removed 
every doubt, and restored the long-lost daughter to 
her mother's arms. 1 

The tender affections by no means form a salient 
feature in the Indian character. They hold them in 
contempt, and scorn every manifestation of them; 
yet, on this occasion, they would not be repressed, 
and the human heart betrayed itself, though throb- 
bing under a breastplate of ice. None of the ordi- 
nary signs of emotion, neither tears, words, nor 
looks, declared how greatly they were moved. It 
was by their kindness and solicitude, by their atten- 
tion to the wants of the captives, by their offers of 
furs, garments, the choicest articles of food, and 
every thing which in their eyes seemed luxury, that 
they displayed their sorrow at parting from their 
adopted relatives and friends. 2 Some among them 
went much farther, and asked permission to follow 
the army on its homeward march, that they might 
hunt for the captives, and supply them with better 
food than the military stores could furnish. A 
young Seneca warrior had become deeply enamoured 
of a Virginian girl. At great risk of his life, he 
accompanied the troops far within the limits of the 
settlements, and, at every night's encampment, ap- 
proaching the quarters of the captives as closely as 
the sentinels would permit, he sat watching, with 
patient vigilance, to catch a glimpse of his lost 
mistress. 

1 Ordinances of the Borough of meant to apply solely to the squaws. 
Carlisle, Appendix. Penn. Hist. Coll. A warrior, who, under the circum- 
267. stances, should have displayed such 

2 Hutchins speaks of the Indians emotion, would have been disgraced 
" shedding torrents of tears." This forever. 

is either a flourish of rhetoric, or is 



Chap. XXVIL] PRISONERS AMONG THE INDIANS. 



507 



The Indian women, whom no idea of honor com- 
pels to wear an iron mask, were far from emulating 
the frigid aspect of their lords. All day they ran 
wailing through the camp; and, when night came, 
the hills and woods resounded with their dreary lam- 
entations. 1 

The word prisoner, as applied to captives taken by 
the Indians, is a misnomer, and conveys a wholly 
false impression of their situation and treatment. 
When the vengeance of the conquerors is sated, when 
they have shot, stabbed, burned, or beaten to death, 
enough to satisfy the shades of their departed rela- 
tives, they usually treat those who survive their wrath 
with moderation and humanity, often adopting them 
to supply the place of lost brothers, husbands, or 
children, whose names are given to the successors 
thus substituted in their place. By a formal cere- 
mony, the white blood is washed from their veins, 
and they are regarded thenceforth as members of the 
tribe, faring equally with the rest in prosperity or 
adversity, in famine or abundance. When children 
are adopted in this manner by Indian women, they 
nurture them with the same tenderness and indul- 
gence wdiich they extend, in a remarkable degree, to 
their own offspring; and such young women as will 



1 The outcries of the squaws, on 
such occasions, would put to shame 
an Irish death-howl. The writer was 
once attached to a large band of In- 
dians, who, being on the inarch, ar- 
rived, a little after nightfall, at a spot 
where, not long before, a party of 
their young men had been killed by 
the enemy. The women instantly 
raised a most astounding clamor, 
some two hundred voices joining in 
a discord as wild and dismal as the 
shrieking of the damned in Dante's 



Inferno ; while some of the chie^ 
mourners gashed their bodies and 
limbs with knives, uttering, mean- 
while, most piteous lamentations. A 
few days later, returning to the 
same encampment after darkness had 
closed in, a strange and startling ef- 
fect was produced by the prolonged 
wailings of several women, who were 
pacing^ the neighboring hills, lament- 
ing the death of a child, killed by the 
bite of a rattlesnake. 



508 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 



not marry an Indian husband are treated with a 
singular forbearance, in which superstition, natural 
temperament, and a sense of right and justice may 
all claim a share. The captive, unless he excites 
suspicion by his conduct, or exhibits peculiar contu- 
macy, is left with no other restraint than his own 
free will. The warrior who captured him, or to whom 
he was assigned in the division of the spoil, some- 
times claims, it is true, a certain right of property 
in him, to the exclusion of others ; but this claim is 
soon forgotten, and seldom exercised to the incon- 
venience of the captive, who has no other prison than 
the earth, the air, and the forest. 1 Five hundred 
miles of wilderness, beset with difficulty and danger, 
are the sole bars to his escape, should he desire to 
effect it; but, strange as it may appear, this wish is 
apt to expire in his heart, and he often remains to 
the end of his life a contented denizen of the woods. 

Among the captives brought in for delivery were 
some bound fast to prevent their escape; and many 
others, who, amid the general tumult of joy and sor- 
row, sat sullen and scowling, angry that they were 
forced to abandon the wild license of the forest for 
the irksome restraints of society. 2 Thus, to look back 
with a fond longing to inhospitable deserts, where 
men, beasts, and Nature herself, seem arrayed in arms, 
and where ease, security, and all that civilization 
reckons among the goods of life, are alike cut off, 
may appear to argue some strange perversity or moral 

• The captives among the Shawa- death, fearing that, in the attack 

noes of the Scioto had most of them which they meditated, the captives 

been recently taken ; and only a would naturally take part with their 

small part had gone through the countrymen. 

ceremony of adoption. Hence it was 2 Hutchins, Account of Bouquet's 

that the warriors, in their desperation, Expedition, 29. 
formed the design of putting them to 



Chap.XXYH] THE FOREST LIFE. 509 

malformation. Yet such has been the experience of 
many a sound and healthful mind. To him who 
has once tasted the reckless independence, the haugh- 
ty self-reliance, the sense of irresponsible freedom, 
which the forest life engenders, civilization thence- 
forth seems flat and stale. Its pleasures are insipid, 
its pursuits wearisome, its conventionalities, duties, 
and mutual dependence alike tedious and disgust- 
ing. The entrapped wanderer grows fierce and rest- 
less, and pants for breathing-room. Kis path, it 
is true, was choked with difficulties, but his body 
and soul were hardened to meet them; it was beset 
with dangers, but these were the very spice of his 
life, gladdening his heart with exulting self-confi- 
dence, and sending the blood through his veins with 
a livelier current. The wilderness, rough, harsh, and 
inexorable, has charms more potent in their seductive 
influence than all the lures of luxury and sloth. 
And often he on whom it has cast its magic 
finds no heart to dissolve the spell, and remains a 
wanderer and an Ishmaelite to the hour of his 
death. 1 



1 Colden, after describing the In- 
dian wars of 1699, 1700, concludes 
in the following -words : — 

"I shall finish this Part by observ- 
ing that notwithstanding the French 
Commissioners took all the Pains 
possible to carry Home the French 
that were Prisoners with the Five 
Nations, and they had full Liberty 
from the Indians, few of them could 
be persuaded to return. It may be 
thought that this was occasioned from 
the Hardships they had endured in 
their own Country, under a tyranni- 
cal Government and a barren Soil. 
But this certainly was not the Rea- 
son, for the English had as much 
Difficulty to persuade the People that 



had been taken Prisoners by the 
French Indians to leave the Indian 
Manner of living, though no People 
enjoy more Liberty, and live in 
greater Plenty than the common In- 
habitants of New York do. No Ar- 
guments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of 
their Friends and Relations, could 
persuade many of them to leave their 
new Indian Friends and Acquaint- 
ance. Several of them that were by 
the Caressings of their Relations 
persuaded to come Home, in a little 
Tune grew tired of our Manner of 
living, "and ran away to the Indians, 
and ended their Days with them. 
On the other Hand> Indian Children 
have been carefully educated among 



510 



BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 



There is a chord, in the breasts of most men, prompt 
to answer loudly or faintly, as the case may be, to 
such rude appeals. But there is influence of another 
sort, strongest with minds of the finest texture, yet 
sometimes holding a controlling power over those 
who neither acknowledge nor suspect its workings. 
There are few so imbruted by vice, so perverted by 
art and luxury, as to dwell in the closest presence 
of Nature, deaf to her voice of melody and power, 
untouched by the ennobling influences which mould 
and penetrate the heart that has not hardened itself 
against them. Into the spirit of such an one the 
mountain wind breathes its own freshness, and the 
midsummer tempest, as it rends the forest, pours its 
own fierce energy. His thoughts flow with the 
placid stream of the broad, deep river, or dance in 
light with the sparkling current of the mountain 
brook. No passing mood or fancy of his mind but 
has its image and its echo in the wild world around 
him. There is softness in the mellow T air, the warm 
sunshine, and the budding leaves of spring; and in 
the forest flower, which, more delicate than the pam- 
pered offspring of gardens, lifts its tender head 
through the refuse and decay of the wilderness. But 
it is the grand and heroic in the hearts of men 
which finds its worthiest symbol and noblest inspira- 
tion amid these desert realms, — in the mountain, 
rearing its savage head through clouds and sleet, or 

the English, clothed and taught ; yet, those that knew nothing of a civil- 
1 think, there is not one Instance that ized Manner of living. What I now 
any of these, after they had Liberty tell of Christian Prisoners among In- 
to go among their own People, ana 1 dians relates not only to what hap- 
were come to Age, would remain pened at the Conclusion of this War, 
with the English, but returned to but has been found true on many 
their own Nations, and became as other Occasions." — C olden, 203. 
fond of the Indian Manner of Life as 



Chap. XXVTL] RETURN OF THE EXPEDITION. 



511 



basking its majestic strength in the radiance of the 
sinking sun ; in the interminable forest, the thunder 
booming over its lonely waste, the whirlwind tearing 
through its inmost depths, or the sun at length set- 
ting in gorgeous majesty beyond its waves of verdure. 
To the sick, the wearied, or the sated spirit, nature 
opens a theatre of boundless life, and holds forth a 
cup brimming with redundant pleasure. In the other 
joys of existence, fear is balanced against hope, and 
satiety against delight ; but here one may fearlessly 
drink, gaining, with every draught, new vigor and a 

7 O O 7 J O 7 o 

heightened zest, and finding no dregs of bitterness 

O 7 O o 

at the bottom. 

Having accomplished its work, the army left the 
Muskingum, and, retracing its former course, arrived 
at Fort Pitt on the twenty-eighth of November. 
The recovered captives were sent to their respective 
homes in Pennsylvania or Virginia; and the provin- 
cial troops disbanded, not without warm praises for 
the hardihood and steadiness with which they had 
met the difficulties of the campaign. The happy 
issue of the expedition spread joy throughout the 
country. At the next session of the Pennsylvania 
Assembly, one of its first acts was to pass a vote of 
thanks to Colonel Bouquet, expressing in the most 
earnest terms their sense of his services and personal 
merits, and conveying their acknowledgments for the 
regard which he had constantly shown to the civil 
rights of the inhabitants. 1 ' The Assembly of Vir- 
ginia passed a similar vote ; and both houses con- 
curred in recommencling Bouquet to the king for 
promotion. Such recommendation proved superfluous, 



1 See Appendix, F. 



512 BOUQUET IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY. [Chap. XXVII. 

for, on the first news of his success, Bouquet had 
been appointed to the rank of brigadier, and the 
command of the southern department. "And," con- 
cludes Hutchins, the chronicler of the campaign, "as 
he is rendered as dear by his private virtues to 
those who have the honor of his more intimate ac- 
quaintance as he is by his military services to the 
public, it is hoped he may long continue among us, 
where his experienced abilities will enable him, and 
his love of the English constitution entitle him, to 
fill any future trust to which his majesty may be 
pleased to call him." This hope was not destined 
to fulfilment. Within three years after his return 
from the Muskingum, he was attacked with a fever 
at Pensacola, which closed, by a premature death, 
the career of a gallant soldier and a generous man. 

The Delawares and Shawanoes, mindful of their en- 
gagement and of the hostages which they had given 
to keep it, sent their deputies, within the appointed 
time, to Sir William Johnson, who concluded a treaty 
with them, stipulating, among the other terms, that 
they should grant free passage through their country 
to English troops and travellers ; that they should 
make full restitution for the goods taken from the 
traders at the breaking out of the war ; and that 
they should aid their triumphant enemies in the dif- 
ficult task which yet remained to be accomplished 
— that of taking possession of the Illinois, and oc- 
cupying its posts and settlements with British troops. 1 



1 MS. Johnson Papers. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



THE ILLINOIS. 

We turn to a region of which, as yet, we have 
caught but transient glimpses ; a region which to 
our forefathers seemed remote and strange, as to us 
the mountain strongholds of the Apaches, or the 
wastes of farthest Oregon. The country of the Illi- 
nois w T as chiefly embraced within the boundaries of 
the state which now retains the name. Thitherward, 
from the east, the west, and the north, three mighty 
rivers rolled their tributary waters ; wdiile countless 
smaller streams — small only in comparison — trav- 
ersed the land with a watery network, impregnating 
the warm soil with exuberant fecundity. From the 
eastward, the Ohio — La Belle Riviere — pursued its 
windings for more than a thousand miles. The 
Mississippi descended from the distant north; while 
from its fountains in the west, three thousand 
miles away, the Missouri poured its torrent towards 
the same common centre. Born among mountains, 
trackless even now, except by the adventurous 
footstep of the trapper, — nurtured amid the howl- 
ing of beasts and the war-cries of savages, never 
silent in that wilderness, — it holds its angry course 
through sun-scorched deserts, among towers and 
palaces, the architecture of no human hand, among 
lodges of barbarian hordes, and herds of bison 
65 



514 



THE ILLINOIS. 



[Chap. XXVIII. 



blackening the prairie to the horizon. Fierce, reck- 
less, headstrong, exulting in its tumultuous force, 
it plays a thousand freaks of wanton power; bearing 
aw 7 ay forests from its shores, and planting them, with 
roots uppermost, in its quicksands ; sweeping off 
islands, and rebuilding them; frothing and raging in 
foam and whirlpool, and, again, gliding with dwindled 
current along its sandy channel. At length, dark 
with uncurbed fury, it pours its muddy tide into the 
reluctant Mississippi. That majestic river, drawing 
life from the pure fountains of the north, wandering 
among emerald prairies and wood-crowned bluffs, 
loses all its earlier charm with this unhallowed 
union. At first, it shrinks as with repugnance, and 
along the same channel the two streams flow side 
by side, with unmingled waters. But the disturb- 
ing power prevails at length; and the united tor- 
rent bears onward in its might, boiling up from 
the bottom, whirling in many a vortex, flooding its 
shores with a malign deluge fraught with pestilence 
and fever, and burying forests in its depths, to in- 
snare the heedless voyager. Mightiest among rivers, 
it is the connecting link of adverse climates and 
contrasted races ; and while at its northern source 
the fur-clad Indian shivers in the cold, — where it 
mingles with the ocean, the growth of the tropics 
springs along its banks, and the panting negro cools 
his limbs in its refreshing waters. 

To these great rivers and their tributary streams 
the country of the Illinois owed its wealth, its 
grassy prairies, and the stately w 7 oods that flour- 
ished, on its deep, rich soil. This prolific land 
teemed with life. It was a hunter's paradise. Deer 
grazed on its meadows. The elk trooped in herds, 



Chap. XXVIIL] 



THE ILLINOIS. 



515 



like squadrons of cavalry. In the still morning, 
one might hear the clatter of their antlers for half 
a mile over the dewy prairie. Countless bison 
roamed the plains, filing in grave procession to 
drink at the rivers, plunging and snorting among 
the rapids and quicksands, rolling their huge bulk 
on the grass, or rushing upon each other in hot en- 
counter, like champions under shield. The wildcat 
glared from the thicket ; the raccoon thrust his 
furry countenance from the hollow tree, and the 
opossum swung, head downwards, from the over- 
hanging bough. 

With the opening spring, when the forests are 
budding into leaf, and the prairies gemmed with 
flowers ; when a warm, faint haze rests upon the 
landscape, - — then heart and senses are inthralled 
with luxurious beauty. The shrubs and wild fruit- 
trees, flushed with pale red blossoms, and the small 
clustering flowers of grape-vines, which choke the 
gigantic trees with Laocoon writhings, fill the forest 
with their rich perfume. A few days later, and a 
cloud of verdure overshadows the land, wdiile birds 
innumerable sing beneath its canopy, and brighten 
its shades with their glancing hues. 

Yet this western paradise is not free from the 
curse of Adam. The beneficent sun, which kindles 
into life so many forms of loveliness and beauty, 
fails not to engender venom and death from the rank 
slime of pestilential swamp "and marsh. In some 
stagnant pool, buried in the jungle-like depths of 
the forest, where the hot and lifeless water reeks 
with exhalations, the water-snake basks by the mar- 
gin, or winds his checkered length of loathsome 
beauty across the sleepy surface. From beneath 



516 



THE ILLINOIS. 



[Chap. XXVIII. 



the rotten carcass of some fallen tree, the moc- 
cason thrusts out his broad flat head, ready to 
dart on the intruder. On the dry, sun-scorched 
prairie, the rattlesnake, a more generous enemy, re- 
poses in his spiral coil. He scorns to shun the 
eye of day, as if conscious of the honor accorded 
to his name by the warlike race, who, jointly with 
him, claim lordship over the land. 1 But some intru- 
sive footstep awakes him from his slumbers. His 
neck is arched; the white fangs gleam in his dis- 
tended jaws ; his small eyes dart rays of unutterable 
fierceness ; and his rattles, invisible with their quick 
vibration, ring the sharp warning which no man 
will rashly contemn. 

The land thus prodigal of good and evil, so 
remote from the sea, so primitive in its aspect, might 
well be deemed an undiscovered region, ignorant of 
European arts ; yet it may boast a colonization as 
old as that of many a spot to which are accorded 



1 The superstitious veneration 
which the Indians entertain for the 
rattlesnake has been before alluded 
to. The Cherokees christened him 
by a name which, being interpreted, 
signifies the bright old inhabitants, a 
title of affectionate admiration of 
which his less partial acquaintance 
would hardly judge him worthy. 

" Between the heads of the north- 
ern branch of the Lower Cheerake 
River, and the heads of that of Tuck- 
aschchee, winding round in a long 
course by the late Fort Loudon, and 
afterwards into the Mississippi, there 
is, both in the nature and circum- 
stances, a great phenomenon. Be- 
tween two high mountains, nearly 
covered with old mossy rocks, lofty 
cedars and pines, in the valleys of 
which the beams of the sun reflect 
a powerful heat, there are, as the 



natives affirm, some bright old inhab- 
itants, or rattlesnakes, of a more 
enormous size than is mentioned in 
history. They are so large and un- 
wieldy, that they take a circle almost 
as wide as their length, to crawl 
round in their shortest orbit ; but 
bountiful nature compensates the 
heavy motion of their bodies ; for, 
as they say, no living creature moves 
within the reach of their sight, but 
they can draw it to them ; which is 
agreeable to what we observe through 
the whole system of animated beings. 
Nature endues them with proper ca- 
pacities to sustain life : as they can- 
not support themselves by their 
speed or cunning, to spring from an 
ambuscade, it is needful they should 
have the bewitching craft of their 
eyes and forked tongues." — Adair, 
237. [ 



Chap. XXYILE.] ITS EAELY COLONIZATION. 



517 



the scanty honors of an American antiquity. The 
earliest settlement of Pennsylvania was made in 
1681 ; the first occupation of the Illinois took 
place in the previous year. La Salle may be called 
the father of the colony. That remarkable man 
entered the country with a handful of followers, 
bent on his grand scheme of Mississippi discovery. 
A legion of enemies rose in his path ; but neither 
delay, disappointment, sickness, famine, open force, 
nor secret conspiracy, could bend his soul of iron. 
Disasters accumulated upon him. He flung them 
off, and still pressed forward to his object. His 
victorious energy bore all before it, but the suc- 
cess on which he had staked his life served only to 
entail fresh calamity, and an untimely death ; and 
his best reward is, that his name stands forth in 
history an imperishable monument of heroic con- 
stancy. When on his way to the Mississippi hi the 
year 1680, La Salle built a fort in the country of 
the Illinois, and, on his return from the mouth of 
the great river, some of his followers remained, and 
established themselves near the spot. Heroes of 
another stamp took up the work which the daring 
Norman had begun. Jesuit missionaries, among the 
best and purest of then: order, burning with zeal 
for the salvation of souls, and the gaining of an 
immortal crown, here toiled and suffered, with a 
self-sacrificing devotion, which extorts a tribute of 
admiration even from sectarian bigotry. While the 
colder apostles of Protestantism labored upon the 
outskirts of heathendom, these champions of the 
cross, the forlorn hope of the army of Borne, 
pierced to the heart of its dark and dreary do- 
main, confronting death at every step, and well 



518 



THE ILLINOIS. 



[Chap. XXVIII. 



repaid for all, could they but sprinkle a few drops 
of water on the forehead of a dying child, or hang 
a gilded crucifix round the neck of some warrior, 
pleased with the glittering trinket. With the begin- 
ning of the eighteenth century, the black robe of 
the Jesuit was known in every village of the Illi- 
nois. Defying the wiles of Satan and the malice of 
his emissaries the Indian sorcerers, exposed to the 
rage of the elements, and every casualty of forest 
life, they followed their wandering proselytes to war 
and to the chase ; now wading through morasses, 
now dragging canoes over rapids and sand-bars ; 
now scorched with heat on the sweltering prairie, 
and now shivering houseless in the blasts of Jan- 
uary. At Kaskaskia and Cahokia they established 
missions, and built frail churches from the bark of 
trees, fit emblems of their own transient and futile 
labors. Morning and evening, the savage worship- 
pers sang praises to the Virgin, and knelt in suppli- 
cation before the shrine of St. Joseph. 1 

Soldiers and fur- traders followed where these 
pioneers of the church had led the way. Forts 
were built here and there throughout the country, 
and the cabins of settlers clustered about the mis- 
sion-houses. The new colonists, emigrants from 
Canada or disbanded soldiers of French regiments, 
bore a close resemblance to the settlers of Detroit, 
or the primitive people of Acadia, whose simple life 
poetry has chosen as an appropriate theme. The 
Creole of the Illinois, contented, light-hearted, and 
thriftless, by no means fulfilled the injunction to 
increase and multiply, and the colony languished in 

1 For an account of Jesuit labors in the Illinois, see the letters of Father 
Marest, in Lett, Edif. IV. 



Chap. XXVIII.] CEEOLES OF THE ILLINOIS. i l l 

spite of the fertile soil. The people labored long 
enough to gain a bare subsistence for each passing 
day, and spent the rest of their time in dancing 
and merry-making, smoking, gossiping, and hunt- 
ing. Their native gayety was irrepressible, and 
they found means to stimulate it with wine made 
from the fruit of the wild grape-vines. Thus they 
passed their days, at peace with themselves, hand 
and glove with their Indian neighbors, and igno- 
rant of all the world beside. Money was scarcely 
known among them. Skins and furs were the 
prevailing currency, and in every village a great 
portion of the land was held in common. The 
military commandant, whose station was at Fort 
Chartres, on the Mississippi, ruled the colony with a 
. sway absolute as that of the Pacha of Egypt, and 
judged civil and ciiminal cases without right of 
appeal. Yet his power was exercised in a patri- 
archal spirit, and he usually commanded the respect 
and confidence of the people. Many years later, 
when, after the War of the Revolution, the Illinois 
came under the jurisdiction of the United States, 
the perplexed inhabitants, totally at a loss to under- 
stand the complicated machinery of republicanism, 
begged to be delivered from the intolerable burden 
of self-government, and to be once more subjected 
to a military commandant. 1 

The Creole is as unchanging in his nature and 
habits as the Indian himself. Even at this day, 

1 The principal authorities for the Address before the Historical Soci- 

above account of the Illinois colony, ety of Vincennes, 14. Brown, Hist, 

i are Hutchins, Topographical De- Illinois, 208. Journal of Captain 

scription, 37. Volney, View of the Harry Gordon, in Appendix to Pow- 

United States, 370. Pitman, Present nail's Topographical Description, 

i State of the European Settlements Nicollet, Report on the Hydrograph- 

| on the Mississippi, passim. Law, ical Basin of the Mississippi, 75. 



9 

520 THE ILLINOIS. [Chap. XXVIII. 

one may see, along the banks of the Mississippi, the 
same low-browed cottages, with their broad eaves 
and picturesque verandas, which, a century ago, were 
clustered around the mission-house at Kaskaskia; 
and, entering, one finds the inmate the same kindly, 
honest, lively, story-telling, and pipe-smoking being 
that his ancestor was before him. Yet, with all 
his genial traits, the rough world deals hardly with 
him. He lives a mere drone in the busy hive 
of an American population. The living tide en- 
croaches on his rest, as the muddy torrent of the 
great river chafes away the farm and homestead of 
his fathers. Yet he contrives to be happy, though 
looking back regretfully to the better days of old. 

At the date of this history, the population of the 
colony, including negroes, who, in that simple com- 
munity, were treated rather as humble friends than 
as slaves, did not exceed two thousand souls, distrib- 
uted in several small settlements. There were about 
eighty houses at Kaskaskia, forty or fifty at Ca- 
hokia, a few at Vincennes and Fort Chartres, and 
a few more scattered in small clusters upon the 
various streams. The agricultural portion of the 
colonists were, as we have described them, marked 
with many weaknesses, and many amiable virtues ; 
but their morals were not improved by a large ad- 
mixture of fur-traders, — reckless, hairbrained adven- 
turers, who, happily for the peace of their relatives, 
were absent on their wandering vocation during the 
greater part of the year. 

Swarms of vagabond Indians infested the settle- 
ments, and, to people of any other character, they 
would have proved an intolerable annoyance. But 
the easy-tempered Creoles made friends and comrades 



Chap. XXVIII] INDIANS OF THE ILLINOIS. 



521 



of them, ate, drank, smoked, and often married 
with them. They were a debauched and drunken 
rabble, the remnants of that branch of the Algon- 
quin stock known among the French as the Illinois, 
a people once numerous and powerful, but now mis- 
erably enfeebled, and corrupted by foreign wars, do- 
mestic dissensions, and their own licentious manners. 
They comprised the broken fragments of five tribes 
— the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Peorias, Mitchigamias, 
and Tamaronas. Some of their villages were in the 
close vicinity of the Creole settlements. On a hot 
summer morning, they might be seen lounging about 
the trading-house, basking in the sun, begging for 
a dram of whiskey, or chaffering with the hard- 
featured trader for beads, tobacco, gunpowder, and 
red paint. 

About the Wabash and its branches, to the east- 
ward of the Illinois, dwelt tribes of similar lineage, 
but more warlike in character, and less corrupt in 
manners. These were the Miamis, in their three 
divisions, their near kindred, the Piankishaws, and a 
portion of the Kickapoos. There was another settle- 
ment of the Miamis upon the BAver Maumee, still 
farther to the east; and it was here that Brads tree t's 
ambassador, Captain Morris, had met so rough a 
welcome. The strength of these combined tribes was 
very considerable ; and, one and all, they looked with 
wrath and abhorrence on the threatened advent of 
the English. 

66 R r * 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



PONTIAC RALLIES THE WESTERN TRIBES. 

When, by the treaty of Paris, 1763, France ceded 
to England her territories east of the Mississippi, 
the Illinois was of course included in the cession. 
Scarcely were the articles signed, when France, as 
if eager to rob herself, at one stroke, of all her 
western domain, threw away upon Spain the vast 
and indefinite regions beyond the Mississippi, des- 
tined at a later day to return to her hands, and 
finally to swell the growing empire of the United 
States. This transfer to Spain was for some time 
kept secret; but orders were immediately sent to the 
officers commanding at the French posts within the 
territory ceded to England, to evacuate the country 
whenever British troops should appear to occupy it. 
These orders reached the Illinois towards the close 
of 1763. Some time, however, was destined to 
elapse before the English arrived to demand its sur- 
render ; for the Indian war was then at its height, 
and the country was protected from access by a 
broad barrier of savage tribes, in the hottest ferment 
of hostility. 

The colonists, hating the English with a more 
than national hatred, deeply imbittered by years of 
disastrous war, received the news of the treaty with 
disgust and execration. Many of them left the 



Chap. XXIX] 



ST. LOUIS. 



523 



country, loath to dwell under the shadow of the Brit- 
ish flag. Of these, some crossed the Mississippi to the 
little hamlet of St. Genevieve, on the western bank; 
others followed the commandant, Neyon de Villiers, 
to New Orleans • while others, taking with them all 
their possessions, even to the frames and clapboard- 
ing of their houses, passed the river a little above 
Cahokia, and established themselves at a beautiful 
spot on the opposite shore, where a settlement was 
just then on the point of commencement. Here a 
line of richly- wooded bluffs rose with easy ascent 
from the margin of the water, while from their 
summits extended a wide plateau of fertile prairie, 
bordered by a framework of forest. In the shadow 
of the trees, which fringed the edge of the declivity, 
stood a newly-built storehouse, with a few slight 
cabins and works of defence, belonging to a company 
of fur-traders. At their head was Pierre Laclede, 
who had left New Orleans with his followers in Au- 
gust, 1763, and, after toiling for three months against 
the impetuous stream of the Mississippi, had reached 
the Illinois in November, and selected the spot al- 
luded to as the site of his first establishment. To 
this he gave the name of St. Louis. 1 Side by side 
with Laclede, in his adventurous enterprise, was a 
young man, slight in person, but endowed with a 
vigor and elasticity of frame which could resist heat 
or cold, fatigue, hunger, or the wasting hand of time, 
Not all the magic of a dream, nor the enchantments 
of an Arabian tale, could outmatch the waking reali- 
ties destined to rise upon the vision of Pierre Chou- 
teau. Where, in his youth, he had climbed the 

i Nicollet, Historical Sketch of drographical Basin of the Upper Mis- 
St. Louis. See Report on the Hy- sissippi River, 75. 



524 



PONTIAC IN THE WEST. 



[Chap. XXIX. 



woody bluff, and looked abroad on prairies dotted 
with bison, he saw, with the dim eye of his old 
age, the land darkened for many a furlong with the 
clustered roofs of the western metropolis. For the 
silence of the wilderness, he heard the clang and 
turmoil of human labor, the din of congregated 
thousands; and where the great river rolled down 
through the forest, in lonely grandeur, he saw the 
waters lashed into foam beneath the prows of pant- 
ing steamboats, flocking to the broad levee. 1 

In the summer of 1764, the military commandant, 
Neyon, had abandoned the country in disgust, and 
gone down to New Orleans, followed by many of the 
inhabitants, a circumstance already mentioned. St. 
Ange de Bellerive remained behind to succeed him. 
St. Ange was a veteran Canadian officer, the same 
who, more than forty years before, had escorted Father 
Charlevoix through the country, and who is spoken 
of with high commendation by the Jesuit traveller 
and historian. He took command of about forty 
men, the remnant of the garrison of Fort Chartres, 



1 Laclede, the founder of St. Louis, 
died before he had brought his grand 
fur-trading enterprise to a conclusion ; 
but his young assistant lived to real- 
ize schemes still more bold and com- 
prehensive ; and to every trader, trap- 
per, and voyageur, from the frontier 
of the United States to the Rocky 
Mountains, and from the British Pos- 
sessions to the borders of New Mexi- 
co, the name of Pierre Chouteau is 
familiar as his own. I visited this 
venerable man in the spring of 1846, 
at his country-seat, in a rural spot 
surrounded by woods, within a few 
miles of St. Louis. The building, in 
the picturesque architecture peculiar 
to the French dwellings of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, with its broad eaves 
and light verandas, and the surround- 



ing negro houses, filled with gay and 
contented inmates, were in singular 
harmony with the character of the 
patriarchal owner, who prided himself 
on his fidelity to the old French 
usages. Though in extreme old age, 
he still retained the vivacity of his 
nation. His memory, especially of 
the events of his youth, was clear 
and vivid ; and he delighted to look 
back to the farthest extremity of the 
long vista of his life, and recall the 
acts and incidents of his earliest 
years. Of Pontiac, whom he had 
often seen, he had a clear recollec- 
tion; and I am indebted to this in- 
teresting interview for several par- 
ticulars regarding the chief and his 
coadjutors. 



Chap. XXIX.] 



ST. ANGE DE BELLERIVE. 



525 



which, remote as it was, was then esteemed one of 
the best constructed military works in America. Its 
ramparts of stone, garnished with twenty cannon, 
scowled across the encroaching Mississippi, destined, 
before 'many years, to ingulf curtain and bastion in 
its ravenous abyss. 

St. Ange's position was by no means an enviable 
one. Pie had a critical part to play. On the one 
hand, he had been advised- of the cession to the Eng- 
lish, and ordered to yield up the country whenever 
they should arrive to claim it. On the other, he was 
beset by embassies from Pontiac, from the Shawa- 
noes, and from the Miamis, and plagued day and 
night by an importunate mob of Illinois Indians, de- 
manding arms, ammunition, and assistance against 
the common enemy. Perhaps, in his secret heart, 
St. Ange would have rejoiced to see the scalps of 
all the Englishmen in the backwoods fluttering in 
the wind over the Illinois wigwams; but his situ- 
ation forbade him to comply with the solicitations of 
his intrusive petitioners, and it is to be hoped that 
some sense of honor and humanity enforced the dic- 
tates of prudence. Accordingly, he cajoled them with 
flatteries and promises, and from time to time dis- 
tributed a few presents to stay their importunity, 
still praying daily that the English might appear and 
relieve him from his uneasy dilemma. 1 

While Laclede was founding St. Louis, while the 
discontented settlers of the Illinois were deserting 
their homes, and while St. Ange was laboring to 
pacify his Indian neighbors, all the tribes from the 
Maumee to the Mississippi were in a turmoil of 



i MS. Letter — St. Ange to D'Abbadie, Sept. 9. 



526 



PONTIAC IN THE WEST. [Chap. XXIX. 



excitement. Pontiac was among them, furious as a 
wild beast at bay. By the double campaign of 1764, 
his best hopes had been crushed to the earth; but 
he stood unshaken amidst the ruin, and still strug- 
gled with desperate energy to retrieve his --broken 
cause. On the side of the northern lakes, the move- 
ments of Bradstreet had put down the insurrection 
of the tribes, and wrested back the military posts 
which cunning and treachery had placed within their 
grasp. In the south, Bouquet had forced to abject 
submission the warlike Dela wares and Shawanoes, the 
warriors on whose courage and obstinacy Pontiac had 
grounded his strongest confidence. On every hand 
defeat and disaster were closing around him. One 
sanctuary alone remained, the country of the Illi- 
nois. Here the flag of France still floated on the 
banks of the Mississippi, and here no English foot 
had dared to penetrate. He resolved to invoke all 
his resources, and bend all his energies to defend 
this last citadel. 1 



1 By the following extract from 
an official paper, signed by Captain 
Grant, and forwarded from Detroit, 
it appears that Pontiac still retained, 
or professed to retain, his original de- 
signs against the garrison of Detroit. 
The paper has no date, but was ap- 
parently written in the autumn of 
1764. By a note appended to it, we 
are told that the Baptiste Campau re- 
ferred to was one of those who had 
acted as Pontiac's secretaries during 
the summer of 1763. 

" On Tuesday last Mr. Jadeau told 
me, in the presence of Col. Gladwin 
& Lieut. Hay of the 6th Regiment, 
that one Lesperance, a Frenchman, 
on his way to the Illinois, he saw a 
letter with the Ottawas, at the Mi- 
amee River, he is sure wrote by one 
Baptist Campau, (a deserter from the 



settlement of Detroit,) & signed by 
Pontiac, from the Illinois, setting forth 
that there were five hundred English 
coming to the Illinois, & that they, 
the Ottawas, must have patience ; that 
he, Pontiac, was not to return until 
he had defeated the English, and 
then he would come with an army 
from the Illinois to take Detroit, which 
he desired they might publish to all 
the nations about. That powder & 
ball was in as great plenty as water. 
That the French Commissary La 
Cleff had sold above forty thousand 
weight of powder to the inhabitants, 
that the English if they came there 
might not have it. 

" There was another letter on the 
subject sent to an inhabitant of De- 
troit, but he can't tell in whose hands 
it is." 



Chap. XXIX.] 



HIS FEENCH ALLIES. 



527 



He was not left to contend unaided. The fur- 
trading French, living at the settlements on the 
Mississippi, scattered about the forts of Ouatanon, 
Vincennes, and Miami, or domesticated among the 
Indians of the Rivers Illinois and Wabash, dreaded 
the English as dangerous competitors in their voca- 
tion, and were eager to bar them from the country. 
They lavished abuse and calumny on the objects of 
their jealousy, and spared no falsehood which in- 
genious malice and self-interest could suggest. They 
gave out that the English were bent on the ruin of 
the tribes, and to that end were stirring them up to 
mutual hostility. They insisted that, though the 
armies of France had been delayed so long, they 
were nevertheless on their way, and that the bayonets 
of the white-coated warriors would soon glitter among 
the forests of the Mississippi. Forged letters were 
sent to Pontiac, signed by the King of France, ex- 
horting him to stand his ground but a few weeks 
longer, and all would then be well. To give the 
better coloring to their falsehoods, some of these in- 
cendiaries assumed the uniform of French officers, 
and palmed themselves off upon their credulous au- 
ditors as ambassadors from the king. Many of the 
principal traders distributed among the warriors sup- 
plies of arms and ammunition, in some instances 
given gratuitously, and in others sold on credit, with 
the understanding that payment should be made from 
the plunder of the English. 1 * 

i MS. Gage Papers. MS. Johnson naturalized among the Indians. In 

Papers. Croghan, Journal. Hildreth, the autumn of 1764, he accompanied 

J Pioneer History, 68. Examination a war-party against the frontier, and 

of Gershom Hicks, see Penn. Gaz. volunteered to come as a spy to Fort 

i No. 1846. Pitt, to ascertain the possibility of 

Hicks was an English miscreant, taking scalps in the neighborhood. 



528 



POXTIAC Cs THE WEST. 



[Chap. XXIX. 



Xow that the insurrection in the east was quelled, 
and the Delawares and Shawanoes beaten into sub- 
mission, it was thought that the English would lose 
no time in taking full possession of the country, 
which, by the peace of 1763, had been transferred 
into their hands. Two principal routes would give 
access to the Illinois. Troops might advance from 
the south, up the great natural highway of the Mis- 
sissippi, or they might descend from the east by way 
of Fort Pitt and the Ohio. In either case, to meet 
and repel them was the determined purpose of 
Pontiac. 

When we last took leave of him, he was on the 
River Maumee, whither he had retired with his 
chosen adherents, on the approach of Bradstreet's 
army, and where, by successive tidings, he learned 
the humiliation of his allies, and the triumph of his 
enemies. Towards the close of autumn, he left his 
encampment, and, followed by four hundred warriors. 



He was detected, seized, and exam- 
ined, and the information he gave 
proved authentic. 

Johnson's letters to the Board of 
Trade, in the early part of 1765, con- 
tain constant references to the sinis- 
ter conduct of the Illinois French. 
The commander-in-chief is still more 
bitter in his invectives, and seems to 
think that French officers of the 
crown were concerned in these prac- 
tices, as well as the traders. If we 
may judge, however, from the corre- 
spondence of St. Ange and his subor- 
dinates, they may be acquitted of the 
charge of any active interference in 
the matter. 

" Sept. 14. I had a private meet- 
ing with the Grand Sauteur, when he 
told me he was well disposed for 
peace last fall, but was then sent for 
to the Illinois, where he met with 



Pondiac : and that then their fathers, 
the French, told them, if they would 
be strong, and keep the English out 
of the possession of that country but 
this summer, that the King of France 
would send over an army next spring, 
to assist his children, the Indians : 
and that the King of Spain would 
likewise send troops, to help them to 
keep the English out of the country : 
that the English were a bad people, 
and had a design to cut off all the 
Indian nations in this country, and to 
bring the southern Indians to live and 
settle there. This account made ail 
the Indians very uneasy in their 
minds : and after holding a counci] 
among themselves, they all deter- 
mined to oppose the English, and not 
suffer them to take possession of the 
Illinois/' — Croghan, Journal, 1765. 



Chap. XXIX.] HE VISITS THE ILLINOIS. 



529 



journeyed westward, to visit in succession the differ- 
ent tribes, and gain their cooperation in his plans 
of final defence. Crossing over to the Wabash, he 
passed from village to village, among the Kickapoos, 
the Piankisiaws, and the three tribes of the Miamis, 
rousing them by his imperious eloquence, and breath- 
ing into them his own fierce spirit of resistance. 
Thence, by rapid marches through forests and over 
prairies, he reached the banks of the Mississippi, and 
summoned the four tribes of the Illinois to a general 
meeting. But these degenerate savages, beaten by 
the surrounding tribes for many a generation past, 
had lost their warlike spirit, and, though abundantly 
noisy and boastful, showed no zeal for fight, and en- 
tered with no zest into the schemes of the Ottawa 
war- chief. Pontiac had his own way of dealing with 
such spirits. " If you hesitate," he exclaimed, frown- 
ing on the cowering assembly, " I will consume your 
tribes as the fire consumes the dry grass on the 
prairie." The doubts of the Illinois vanished like 
the mist, and with marvellous alacrity they declared 
then* concurrence hi the views of the orator. Hav- 
ing secured these allies, such as they were, Pontiac 
departed, and hastened to Fort Chartres. St. Ange, 
so long tormented with embassy after embassy, and 
mob after mob, thought that the crowning evil was 
come at last, when he saw the arch-demon Pon- 
tiac enter at the gate, with four hundred warriors 
at his back. Arrived at the council-house, Pontiac 
addressed the commandant in a tone of high cour- 
tesy : Father, we have long wished to see you, to 
shake hands with you, and, whilst smoking the calu- 
met of peace, to recall the battles in which we 
fought together against the misguided Indians and 
67 ss 



530 



PONTIAC IN THE WEST. 



[Chap. XXIX. 



the English dogs. I love the French, and I hare 
come hither with my warriors to avenge their 
wrongs." 1 Then followed a demand for arms, am- 
munition, and troops, to act in concert with the 
Indian warriors. St. Ange was forced to decline 
rendering the expected aid; bnt he sweetened his 
denial with soothing compliments, and added a few 
gifts, to remove any lingering bitterness. Pontiac 
would not be appeased. He angrily complained of 
snch lukewarm friendship, where he had looked for 
ready sympathy and support. His warriors pitched 
their lodges about the fort, and threatening symp- 
toms of an approaching rupture began to alarm the 
French. 

In the mean time, Pontiac had caused his squaws 
to construct a belt of wampum of extraordinary size, 
six feet hi length, and four inches wide. It was 
wrought from end to end with the symbols of the 
various tribes and villages, forty-seven hi number, 
still leagued together in his alliance. 2 He consigned 
it to an embassy of chosen warriors, directing them 
to carry it down the Mississippi, displaying it, in 
turn, at every Indian village along its banks, and 
exhorting the inhabitants, in his name, to watch the 
movements of the English, and repel any attempt 
they might make to ascend the river. This done, 
they were to repair to New Orleans, and demand 
from the governor, M. D'Abbadie, the aid which 
St. Ange had refused. The bark canoes of the 

i Nicollet, Report on the Basin of derived from Chouteau, Menard, and 

the Upper Mississippi, 81. M. Ni- other patriarchs of the Illinois, 

collet's account is worthy of full con- 2 MS. Letter — St. Ange to D'Ab- 

fidence, being given on the authority badie, Sept 9. 
of documents and oral narratives 



Chap. XXIX.] REPULSE OF LOETUS. 



531 



embassy put out from trie shore, and whirled down 
the current like floating leaves in autumn. 

Soon after their departure, tidings came to Fort 
Chartres, which caused a joyous excitement among 
the Indians, and relieved the French garrison from 
any danger of an immediate rupture. In our own 
day, the vast distance between the great city of 
New Orleans and the populous state of Illinois has 
dwindled into insignificance beneath the magic of 
science; but at the date of this history, three or 
four months were often consumed in the upward 
passage, and the settlers of the lonely forest colony 
were sometimes cut off from all communication with 
the world for half a year together. The above-men- 
tioned tidings, interesting as they were, had occupied 
no less time in their passage. Their import was as 
follows : — 

Very early in the previous spring, an English 
officer, Major Loftus, having arrived at New Orleans 
with four hundred regulars, had attempted to ascend 
the Mississippi, to take possession of Fort Chartres 
and its dependent posts. His troops were embarked 
in large and heavy boats. Their progress was slow, 
and they had reached a point not more than eighty 
leagues above New Orleans, when, one morning, their 
ears were greeted with the crack of rifles from the 
thickets of the western shore ; and a soldier in the 
foremost boat fell, with a mortal wound. The 
troops, in dismay, sheered over towards the eastern 
shore; but, when fairly within gunshot, a score of 
rifles obscured the forest edge with smoke, and filled 
the nearest boat with dead and wounded men. On 
this, they steered for the middle of the river, where 



532 POXTIAC W THE WEST. [Chap. XXIX. 

they remained for a time, exposed to a dropping fire 
from either bank, too distant to take effect. 

The river was high, and the shores so flooded, 
that nothing but an Indian could hope to find 
foothold in the miry labyrinth. Loftus was ter- 
rified ; the troops were discouraged, and a council 
of officers determined that to advance was impos- 
sible. Accordingly, with their best despatch, they 
steered back for New Orleans, where they arrived 
without farther accident, and where the French, in 
great glee at their discomfiture, spared no ridicule at 
their expense. They alleged, and with much appear- 
ance of truth, that the English had been repulsed 
by no more than thirty warriors. Loftus charged 
D'Abbadie with having occasioned his disaster by 
stirring up the Indians to attack him. The gov- 
ernor called Heaven to witness his innocence ; and, 
in truth, there is not the smallest reason to believe 
him guilty of such villany. 1 Loftus, who had not 
yet recovered from his fears, conceived an idea that 
the Indians below New Orleans 1 were preparing an 
ambuscade to attack him on his way back to his 
station at Pensacola ; and he petitioned D'Abbadie 
to interfere hi his behalf. The latter, with an ill- 
dissembled sneer, offered to give him and his troops 

1 D'Abbadie's correspondence with procured in the archives of the De- 

St. Ange goes far to exonerate him ; partment of the Marine and Colonies 

and there is a letter addressed to at Paris. These papers include the 

him from General Gage, in which reports of various councils with the 

the latter thanks him very cordially Indian tribes of the Illinois, and the 

for the efforts which he had made in whole official correspondence of the 

behalf of Major Loftus, aiding him French officers in that region during 

to procure boats and guides, and the years 1763-5. They form the 

make other preparations for ascend- principal authorities for this part of 

ing the river. the narrative, and throw great light 

The correspondence alluded to on the character of the Indian war, 

forms part of a collection of papers from its commencement to its close. 



Chap. XXIX.] THE ENGLISH ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 



533 



an escort of French soldiers to protect them. Loftus 
rejected the hnmiliating proposal, and declared that 
he only wished for a French interpreter, to confer 
with any Indians whom he might meet by the way. 
The interpreter was furnished, and Loftus returned 
in safety to Pensacola, his detachment not a little 
reduced by the few whom the Indians had shot, 
and by numbers who, disgusted by his overbearing 
treatment, had deserted to the French. 1 

The futile attempt of Loftus to ascend the Missis- 
sippi was followed, a few months after, by another 
equally abortive. Captain Pittman came to New 
Orleans with the design of proceeding to the Illi- 
nois, but was deterred by the reports which reached 
him concerning the temper of the Indians. The 
latter, elated beyond measure by their success against 
Loftus, and excited, moreover, by the messages and 
war-belt of Pontiac, were in a state of angry com- 
motion, which made the passage too imminently haz- 
ardous to be attempted. Pittman bethought himself 
of assuming the disguise of a Frenchman, joining a 
party of Creole traders, and thus reaching his des- 
tination by stealth; but weighing the risk of detec- 
tion, he abandoned this design also, and returned to 
Mobile. 2 Between the Illinois and the settlements 
around New Orleans, the Mississippi extended its 
enormous length through solitudes of marsh and 
forest, broken here and there by a squalid Indian 
village, or, at vast intervals, by one or two military 
posts erected by the French, and forming the resting- 

i London Mag. XXXHI. 380. 2 MS. Correspondence of Pittman 
MS. " Detail de ce qui s'est passe with if. D'Abbadie, among the Paris 
a La Louisiane a l'occasion de la Documents, 
prise de possession des Illinois." 

S S* 



POXTIAC IN THE WEST. 



[Chap. XXIX. 



places of the voyager. After the failure of Pittman, 
more than a year elapsed before an English detach- 
ment could succeed in passing this great thorough- 
fare of the wilderness, and running the gantlet of 
the savage tribes who guarded its shores. It was 
not till the second of December, 1765, that Major 
Farmar, at the head of a strong body of troops, 
arrived, after an uninterrupted voyage, at Fort 
Chartres, where the flag of his country had already 
supplanted the standard of France. 1 

To return to our immediate theme. The ambas- 
sadors, whom Pontiac had sent from Fort Chartres 
in the autumn of 1764, faithfully acquitted them- 
selves of their trust. They visited the Indian vil- 
lages along the river banks, kindling the thirst for 
blood and massacre in the breasts of the inmates. 
They pushed their sanguinary mission even to the 
farthest tribes of Southern Louisiana, to whom the 
great name of Pontiac had long been known, and 
of late made familiar by repeated messages and em- 
bassies. 2 This portion of their task accomplished, 
they repaired to New Orleans, and demanded an 
audience of the governor. 

New Orleans was then a town of about seven 
thousand white inhabitants, guarded from the river 
floods by a levee extending for fifty miles along the 
banks. The small brick houses, one story in height, 
were arranged with geometrical symmetry, like the 



i MS. Letter — Campbell to Gage, 
Feb. 24, 1766. 

- By the correspondence between 
the French officers of Upper and 
Lower Louisiana, it appears that 
Pontiac's messengers, in several in- 
stances, had arrived in the vicinity 



of New Orleans, whither they had 
come, partly to beg for aid from the 
French, and partly to urge the In- 
dians of the adjacent country to bar 
the mouth of the Mississippi against 
the English. 



Chap. XXIX.] 



NEW ORLEANS IX 1765. 



535 



squares of a chess-board. Each house had its yard 
and garden, and the town was enlivened with the 
verdure of trees and grass. In front, a public 
square, or parade-ground, opened upon the river, 
enclosed on three sides by the dilapidated church of 
St. Louis, a prison, a convent, government buildings, 
and a range of barracks. The place was surrounded 
by a defence of palisades strong enough to repel an 
attack of Indians, or insurgent slaves. 1 

When Pontiac's ambassadors entered New Or- 
leans, they found the town in a state of confu- 
sion. It had long been known that the regions 
east of the Mississippi had been surrendered to Eng- 
land ; a cession from which, however, New Orleans 
and its suburbs had been excluded by a special pro- 
vision. But it was only within a few weeks that 
the dismayed inhabitants had learned that their 
mother country had transferred her remaining Amer- 
ican possessions to the crown of Spain, whose gov- 
ernment and people they cordially detested. With 
every day they might expect the arrival of a Span- 
ish governor and garrison. The French officials, 
whose hour was drawing to its close, were making 
the best of their short-lived authority by every 
species of corruption and peculation ; and the inhab- 
itants were awaiting, in anger and repugnance, the 
approaching change, which was to place over their 
heads masters whom they hated. The governor, 
D'Abbadie, an ardent soldier and a zealous patriot, 
was so deeply chagrined at what he conceived to be 
the disgrace of his country, that his feeble health 



1 Pittman, European Settlements 
on the Mississippi, 10. The author 
of this book is the officer mentioned 



in the text as having" made an un- 
successful attempt to reach the Illi- 
nois. 



536 



PONTIAC IN THE WEST. 



[Chap. XXIX. 



gave way, and he betrayed all the symptoms of a 
rapid decline. 

Haggard with illness, and bowed down with shame, 
the dying governor received the Indian envoys in the 
conncil-hall of the province, where he was never 
again to assume his seat of office. Besides the 
French officials in attendance, several English officers, 
who chanced to be in the town, had been invited to 
the meeting, with the view of soothing the jealousy 
with which they regarded all intercourse between 
the French and the Indians. A Shawanoe chief, the 
orator of the embassy, displayed the great war-belt, 
and opened the council. "These red dogs," he said, 
alluding to the color of the British uniform, "have 
crowded upon us more and more; and when we ask 
them by what right they come, they tell us that 
you, our French fathers, have given them our lands. 
We know that they lie. These lands are neither 
yours nor theirs, and no man shall give or sell them 
without our consent. Fathers, we have always been 
your faithful children, and we now have come to 
ask that you will give us guns, powder, and lead, to 
aid us in this war." 

D'Abbadie replied in a feeble voice, endeavoring 
to allay their vindictive jealousy of the English, and 
promising to give them all that should be necessary 
to supply their immediate wants. The council then 
adjourned until the following day ; but, in the mean 
time, the wasted strength of the governor gave way 
beneath a renewed attack of his disorder, and before 
the appointed hour arrived, he had breathed his last, 
hurried to a premature death by the anguish of 
mortified pride and patriotism. M. Aubry, his suc- 
cessor, presided in his place, and received the savage 



Chap. XXIX.] PONTIAC'S EMBASSY AT NEW ORLEANS. 537 

embassy. The orator, after the solemn custom of 
his people, addressed him in a speech of condolence, 
expressing his deep regret for D'Abbadie's untimely 
fate. 1 A chief of the Miamis then rose to speak, 
with a scowling brow, and words of bitterness and 
reproach. 44 Since we last sat on these seats, our 
ears have heard strange words. When the English 
told us that they had conquered you, we always 
thought that they lied; but now we have learned 
that they spoke the truth. We have learned that 
you, whom we have loved and served so well, have 
given the lands that we dwell upon to your enemies 
and ours. We have learned that the English have 
forbidden you to send traders to our villages to 
supply our wants, and that you, whom we thought 
so great and brave, have obeyed their commands like 
women, leaving us to starve and die in misery. We 
now tell you, once for all, that our lands are our 
own; and we tell you, moreover, that we can live 
without your aid, and hunt, and fish, and fight, as 
our fathers did before us. All that we ask of you 
is this, that you give us back the guns, the powder, 
the hatchets, and the knives which we have worn 
out in fighting your battles. As for you," he ex- 
claimed, turning to the English officers, who were 
present as on the previous day, — 44 as for you, our 
hearts burn with rage when we think of the ruin 
you have brought on us." Aubry returned but a 
weak answer to the cutting attack of the Indian 
speaker. He assured the ambassadors that the 

1 At all friendly meetings with offering, at the same time, a black 

Indians, it was customary for the belt of wampum, in token of mourn- 

latter, when the other party had sus- ing. This practice may be partic- 

tained any signal loss, to commence ularly observed in the records of 

by a formal speech of condolence, early councils with the Iroquois. 

68 



538 



PONTIAC IN THE WEST. 



[Chap. XXIX. 



French, still retained their former love for the In- 
dians, that the English meant them no harm, and 
that, as all the world were now at peace, it behoved 
them also to take hold of the chain of friendship. 
A few presents were then distributed, but with no 
apparent effect. The features of the Indians still 
retained their sullen scowl ; and on the morrow, 
their canoes were ascending the Mississippi on their 
homeward voyage. 1 

1 MS. Report of Conference with from Pontiac, held at New Orleans, 
the Shawanoe and Miami delegates March, 1765. Paris Documents. 



♦ 



CHAPTER XXX. 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 

The repulse of Loftus, and rumors of the fierce 
temper of the Indians who guarded the Mississippi, 
convinced the commander-in-chief that to reach the 
Illinois by the southern route was an enterprise of 
no easy accomplishment. Yet, at the same time, he 
felt the strong necessity of a speedy military occu- 
pation of the country ; since, while the fleur de lis 
floated over a single garrison in the ceded territory, 
it would be impossible to disabuse the Indians of 
the phantom hope of French assistance, to which 
they clung with infatuated tenacity. The embers 
of the Indian war would never be quenched until 
England had enforced all her claims over her de- 
feated rival. Gage determined to despatch a force 
from the eastward, by way of Fort Pitt and the 
Ohio ; a route now laid open by the late success of 
Bouquet, and the submission of the Delawares and 
Shawanoes. 

To prepare a way for the passage of the troops, 
Sir William Johnson's deputy, George Croghan, was 
ordered to proceed in advance, to reason with the 
Indians as far as they were capable of reasoning, to 
soften their antipathy to the English, to expose the 
falsehoods of the French, and to distribute presents 



540 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 



[Chap. XXX. 



among the tribes by way of propitiation. 1 The mis- 
sion was a critical one, but Croghan was well fitted 
to discharge it. He had been for years a trader 
among the western tribes, over whom he had gained 
much influence by a certain vigor of character, 
joined to a wary and sagacious policy, concealed 
beneath a bluff demeanor. He and his assistant, 
Lieutenant Fraser, with the men who were to attend 
them, set out for Fort Pitt, in February, 1765; and 
after traversing inhospitable mountains, and valleys 
clogged with snow, reached their destination at 
about the same time that Pontiac's ambassadors 
were entering New Orleans, to hold their council 
with the French. 

A few days later, an incident occurred, which 
afterwards, through the carousals of many a winter 
evening, supplied an absorbing topic of anecdote and 
boast to the braggadocio heroes of the border. A 
train of pack horses, bearing the gifts which Croghan 
was to bestow upon the Indians, followed him 
towards Fort Pitt, a few days' journey in the rear 
of his party. Under the same escort came several 
companies of traders, who, believing that the long 
suspended commerce with the Indians was about to 
be reopened, were hastening to Fort Pitt with a great 
quantity of goods, eager to throw them into the 
market, the moment the prohibition should be re- 
moved. The Paxton men, and their kindred spirits 
of the border, saw this proceeding with sinister eyes. 
In their view, the traders were about to make a 
barter of the blood of the people ; to place in the 
hands of murdering savages the means of renewing 



1 MS. Gage Papers. 



Chap. XXX.] EXPLOITS OE TEE BORDERERS. 



541 



the devastation to which, the reeking frontier bore 
frightful witness. Once possessed with this idea, 
they troubled themselves with no more inquiries; 
and, having tried remonstrances in vain, they adopted 
a summary mode of doing themselves justice. At 
the head of the enterprise was a man whose name 
had been connected with more praiseworthy exploits, 
James Smith, already mentioned as leading a party 
of independent riflemen, for the defence of the bor- 
ders, during the bloody autumn of 1763. He now 
mustered his old associates, made them resume their 
Indian disguise, and led them to their work with 
characteristic energy and address. 

The government agents and traders were in the 
act of passing the verge of the frontiers. Their 
united trains amounted to seventy pack horses, carry- 
ing goods to the value of more than fifteen thousand 
pounds. Advancing deeper among the mountains, 
they began to descend the valley at the foot of Si- 
dling Hill. The laden horses plodded knee-deep in 
snow. The mountains towered above the wayfarers 
in gray desolation; and the leafless forest, a mighty 
JEolian harp, howled dreary music to the wind 
of March. Suddenly, from behind snow-beplastered 
trunks, and shaggy bushes of evergreen, uncouth ap- 
paritions started into view. Wild visages protruded, 
grotesquely horrible with vermilion and ochre, white 
lead and soot ; stalwart limbs appeared, encased in 
buckskin ; and rusty rifles thrust out their long 
muzzles. In front, and flank, and all around them, 
white puffs of smoke and sharp reports assailed 
the bewildered senses of the travellers, who were 
yet more confounded by the hum of bullets shot 
by unerring fingers within an inch of their ears. 

TT 



542 



EUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 



[Chap. XXX, 



" Gentlemen," demanded the traders, in deprecating 
accents, "what would you have us do?" "Un- 
pack your horses," roared a voice from the woods, 
" pile your goods in the road, and be off." The 
traders knew those with whom they had to deal. 
Hastening to obey the mandate, they departed with 
their utmost speed, happy that their scalps were 
not numbered with the booty. The spoilers appro- 
priated to themselves such of the plunder as pleased 
them, made a bonfire of the rest, and went on their 
way rejoicing. The discomfited traders repaired to 
Fort Loudon, and laid their complaints before Captain 
Grant, the commandant, who, inflamed with wrath 
and zealous for the cause of justice, despatched a 
party of soldiers, seized several innocent persons, 
and lodged them in the guard-house. In high 
dudgeon at such an infraction of their liberties, 
the borderers sent messengers through the country, 
calling upon all good men to rise in arms. Three 
hundred obeyed the summons, and pitched their 
camp on a hill opposite Fort Loudon ; a rare muster 
of desperadoes, yet observing a certain moderation in 
their wildest acts, and never at a loss for a plausi- 
ble reason to justify any pranks which it might 
please them to exhibit. By some means, they con- 
trived to waylay and capture a considerable number 
of the garrison, on which the commandant conde- 
scended to send them a flag of truce, and offer an 
exchange of prisoners. Their object thus accom- 
plished, and their imprisoned comrades restored to 
them, the borderers dispersed for the present to their 
homes. Soon after, however, upon the occurrence of 
some fresh difficulty, the commandant, afraid or un- 
able to apprehend the misdoers, endeavored to deprive 



Chat. XXX.] EXPLOITS OF THE BORDERERS. 543 

them of the power of mischief by sending soldiers 
to their houses and carrying off their rifles. His tri- 
umph was short ; for, as he rode out one afternoon, 
he fell into an ambuscade of countrymen, who, dis- 
pensing with all forms of respect, seized the incensed 
officer, and detained him hi an uncomfortable cap- 
tivity until the rifles were restored. From this time 
forward, ruptures were repeatedly occurring between 
the troops and the frontiersmen; and the Pennsyl- 
vania border retained its turbulent character until 
the outbreak of the Eevolutionary War. 1 



1 The account of the seizure of the 
Indian goods is derived chiefly from 
the narrative of the ringleader, Smith, 
published in Drake's Tragedies of 
the Wilderness, and elsewhere. The 
correspondence of Gage and John- 
son is filled with allusions to this af- 
fair, and the subsequent proceedings 
of the freebooters. Gage spares no 
invectives against what he calls the 
licentious conduct of the frontier peo- 
ple. In the narrative is inserted a 
ballad, or lyrical effusion, written by 
some partisan of the frontier faction, 
and evidently regarded by Smith as 
a signal triumph of the poetic art. 
He is careful to inform the reader 
that the author received his educa- 
tion in the great city of Dublin. The 
following melodious stanzas embody 
the chief action of the piece : — 

£1 Astonished at the wild design, 
Frontier inhabitants combin'd 

With brave souls to stop their career ; 
Although some men apostatiz'd, 
Who first the grand attempt advis'd, 
The bold frontiers they bravely stood, 
To act for their king and their country's good, 
In joint league, and strangers to fear. 

" On March the fifth, in sixty-five, 
The Indian presents did arrive, 

In long pomp and cavalcade, 
Near Sidelong Hill, where in disguise 
Some patriots did their train surprise, 
And quick as lightning tumbled their loads, 
And kindled them bonfires in the woods, 

And mostly burnt their whole brigade." 

The following is an extract from 



Johnson's letter to the Board, dated 
July 10, 1765: — 

"I have great cause to think that 
Mr. Croghan will succeed in his en- 
terprise, unless circumvented by the 
artifices of the French, or through 
the late licentious conduct of our own 
people. Although His Excellency 
General Gage has written to the 
Ministry on that subject, yet I think 
I should not be silent thereupon, as 
it may be productive of very serious 
consequences. 

" The frontier inhabitants of Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, 
after having attacked and destroyed 
the goods which were going to Fort 
Pitt, (as in my last,) did form them- 
selves into parties, threatening to 
destroy all Indians they met, or all 
white people who dealt with them. 
They likewise marched to Fort Au- 
gusta, and from thence over the West 
branch of the Susquehanna, beyond 
the Bounds of the last purchase made 
by the Proprietaries, where they de- 
clare they will form a settlement, in 
defiance of Whites or Indians. They 
afterwards attacked a small party of 
His Majesty's troops upon the Road, 
but were happily obliged to retire 
with the loss of one or two men. 
However, from their conduct and 
threats since, there is reason to think 
they will not stop here. Neither is 
their licentiousness confined to the 



544 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. [Chap. XXX 



The plea of necessity, by which, the border robbers 
endeavored to excuse the plunder of the caravan, is 
more plausible than valid, since the traders, with 
their goods, would not have been allowed to leave 
Fort Pitt until all chniculties with the Indians had 
been fully adjusted. This act of lawless violence 
wrought great injury to Croghan and his mission ; 
for the property of government had shared the fate 
of that belonging to the traders, and the agency 
most potent to gain the affections of an Indian 
had been completely paralyzed in the destruction 
of the presents. Croghan found means, however, 
partially to repair his loss from the storehouse of 
Fort Pitt, where the rigor of the season and the 
great depth of the snow forced him to remain several 
weeks. This cause alone would have served to de- 
tain him; but he was yet farther retarded by the 
necessity of holding a meeting with the Delawares 
and Shawanoes, along whose southern borders he 
would be compelled to pass. An important object 
of the proposed meeting was, to urge these tribes to 
fulfil the promise they had made during the previous 
autumn to Colonel Bouquet, to yield up their re- 
maining prisoners, and send dej^uties to treat of 
peace with Sir AVilliam Johnson ; engagements which, 
when Croo-han arrived at the fort, were as vet unful- 

O 1 »' 



Provinces I have mentioned, the peo- 
ple of Carolina having cut off a party, 
coming down under a pass from Col. 
Lewis, of the particulars of vrhich 
your Lordships have been doubtless 
informed. 

" Your Lordships may easily con- 
ceive what effects this will have upon 
the Indians, who begin to be all ac- 
quainted therewith. I wish it may not 



have already gone too great a length 
to receive a timely check, or prevent 
the Indians' Resentment, who see 
themselves attacked, threatened, and 
their property invaded, by a set of 
ignorant, misled Rioters, who defy 
Government itself, and this at a time 
when we have just treated with some, 
and are in treaty with other Na- 
tions." 



Chap. XXX.] 



COXGEESS AT FORT PITT. 



545 



filled, though, as already mentioned, they were soon 
after complied with. 

Immediately on his arrival, he had despatched mes- 
sengers inviting the chiefs to a council ; a summons 
which they obeyed with their usual reluctance and de- 
lay, dropping in, band after band, with such tardiness 
that a month was consumed before a sufficient num- 
ber was assembled. Croghan then addressed them, 
showing the advantages of peace, and the peril which 
they would bring on their own heads by a renewal 
of the war, and urging them to stand true to their en- 
gagements, and send their deputies to Johnson as soon 
as the melting of the snows should leave the forest 
pathways open. Several replies, all of a pacific na- 
ture, were made by the principal chiefs ; but the most 
remarkable personage who appeared at the council 
was the Delaware prophet mentioned in an early 
portion of the narrative, as having been strongly in- 
strumental in urging the tribes to war, by means of 
pretended or imaginary revelations from the Great 
Spirit 1 He now delivered a speech by no means re- 
markable for eloquence, yet of most beneficial conse- 
quence ; for he intimated that the Great Spirit had 
not only revoked his sanguinary mandates, but had 
commanded the Indians to lay down the hatchet, and 
smoke the pipe of peace. 2 In spite of this auspicious 
declaration, hi spite of the chastisement and humilia- 
tion of the previous autumn, Croghan was privately 
informed that a large party among the Indians still 



1 See ante, p. 158. 

2 MS. Journal of the Transactions of 
George Croghan, Esq., deputy agent 
for Indian affairs, with different tribes 

69 



of Indians, at Fort Pitt, from the 28th 
of February, 1765, to the 12th of 
May following. In this journal the 
prophet's speech is given in full. 

IJl r£ 7$ 



546 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 



[Chap. XXX. 



remained balanced between their anger and their 
fears, eager to take up the hatchet, yet dreading the 
consequences which the act might bring. Under this 
cloudy aspect of affairs, he was doubly gratified when 
a party of Shawanoe warriors arrived, bringing with 
them the prisoners, whom they had promised Colonel 
Bouquet to surrender; and this faithful adherence to 
their word, contrary alike to Croghan's expectations 
and to the prophecies of those best versed in Indian 
character, made it apparent that whatever might be 
the sentiments of the turbulent among them, the 
more influential portion were determined on a pacific 
attitude. 

These councils, and the previous delays, consumed 
so much time, that Croghan became fearful that the 
tribes of the Illinois might, meanwhile, commit them- 
selves by some rash outbreak, which would increase 
the difficulty of reconciliation. In view of this dan- 
ger, his assistant, Lieutenant Fraser, a young man 
more bold than prudent, volunteered to go forward 
in advance, leaving his principal to follow when he 
had settled affairs at Fort Pitt, Croghan assented, 
and Fraser departed with a few attendants. The 
rigor of the season had now begun to relent, and the 
ice-locked Ohio was flinging off its wintry fetters. 
Embarked in a birch canoe, and aided by the cur- 
rent, Fraser floated prosperously downwards for a 
thousand miles, and landed safely in the country of 
the Illinois. Here he met such a reception as he 
might have expected, very similar to that which, dur- 
ing the autumn before, Captain Morris had encoun- 
tered in the Miami village. In short, he found 
himself in a nest of hornets, and in terror for his 



Chap. XXX.] ALTERED CONDUCT OF THE FRENCH. 



547 



life. Abandoning the purposes of his mission, he 
fled in disguise down the Mississippi, to seek refuge 
among the French at New Orleans. 1 

Had Fraser's rash attempt been made but a few 
weeks earlier, his blood would doubtless have paid 
the forfeit; but, of late, a change had taken place 
in the Illinois. A rumor was abroad that an Eng- 
lish detachment was about to descend the Ohio, and 
the report had magical effect. The French traders, 
before so busy with their falsehoods and calumnies 
against the English, now held their peace, dreading 
the impending chastisement. They no longer gave 
arms and ammunition to the Indians ; and when the 
latter questioned them concerning the fabrication of 
a French army advancing to the rescue, they treated 
the story as unfounded, or sought to evade the sub- 
ject. St. Ange, too, and the other officers of the 
crown, confiding in the arrival of the English, as- 
sumed a more decisive tone, refusing to give the 
Indians presents, telling them that thenceforward 
they must trust to the English for supplies, reproving 
them for their designs against the latter, and advising 
them to remain at peace. 2 Indeed, the Indians were 

1 MS. Letter — Aubry to the Min- large kettle in which he was deter- 

ister, July, 1765. Aubry makes him- mined to boil them and all other Eng- 

self merry with the fears of Fraser ; lishmen that came that way 

who, however, had the best grounds Pondiac told the French that he had 

for his apprehensions, as is sufficient- been informed of Mr. Croghan's com- 

ly clear from the minutes of a council ing that way to treat with the Indians, 

held by him with Pontiac and other and that he would keep his kettle 

Indians, at the Illinois, during the boiling over a large fire to receive 

month of April. The minutes referred him likewise." 

to are among the Paris Documents. Pontiac seems soon after to have 

Extract from a Letter — Fort Pitt, relented, for another letter, dated 

July 24, (Pa. Gaz.Nos. 1912, 1913:)— New Orleans, June 19, adds, "He 

" Pondiac immediately collected all [Fraser] says Pondiac is a very clever 

the Indians under his influence to the fellow, and had it not been for him, 

Illinois, and ordered the French com- he would never have got away 

manding officer there to deliver up alive." 

these Englishmen [Fraser and his 2 " Harangue faitte a la nation Illi- 

party] to him, as he had prepared a noise et au Chef Pondiak par M. de 



548 



EUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. [Chap. XXX. 



in no condition to renew the war. The supplies ob- 
tained from the French had been squandered after 
their usual childish manner, and they were miserably 
hi want of food, arms, and clothing. 1 It is true 
that, about the time of Fraser's arrival, a most op- 
portune, though inadequate, supply fell into their 
hands, in the following manner: the English officers 
in the south, unable to send troops up the Missis- 
sippi, had employed a Frenchman, whom they had 
secured in their interest, to ascend the river with a 
boat load of goods, which he was directed to dis- 
tribute among the Indians, to remove their prejudice 
against the English, and pave the way to reconcilia- 
tion. Intelligence of this movement reached the ears 
of Pontiac, who, though much pleased with the ap- 
proaching supplies, had no mind that they should be 
devoted to serve the interests of his enemies. He 
descended to the river bank with a body of his war- 
riors, and as La Garantais, the Frenchman, landed, 
he seized him and his men, flogged them severely, 
robbed them of their cargo, and distributed the goods 
with exemplary impartiality among his delighted fol- 
lowers. 2 The supply fell far short of their exigen- 
cies ; and it is probable also that the cargo consisted 
of whiskey, tobacco, paint, trinkets, and other articles, 
useless in war. 

Notwithstanding this good fortune, Pontiac daily 
saw his followers dropping off from their allegiance; 
for even the boldest had lost heart. Had any thing 

St. Ange, Cap. Commandant au pais was written before the tidings of 

des Illinois pour S. M. T. C. au sujet D'Abbadie's death had readied the 

de la guerre que Les Indiens font aux Illinois. 

Anglois, le 18 Avril, 1765." 2 MS. Letter — Aubry to the Min- 

1 MS. Letter — St. Ange to D'Ab- ister, July 10, 1765. 
badie, April 20, 1765. This letter 



Chap. XXX.] POXTIAC — HIS DESPEEATE POSITION. 



549 



been wanting to convince hini of the hopelessness 
of his cause, the report of his ambassadors return- 
ing from New Orleans would hare banished every 
doubt. Xo record of his interview with them re- 
mains ; but it is easy to conceive with what chagrin 
he must have learned that the officer of France first 
in rank hi all America had refused to aid him, 
and urged the timid counsels of peace. The vanity 
of those expectations, which had been the main- 
spring of his enterprise, now rose clear and palpa- 
ble before him ; and with rage and bitterness, he saw 
the rotten foundation of his hopes sinking into dust, 
and the whole structure of his plot crumbling in 
ruins about him. 

All was lost. His allies were falling off, his fol- 
lowers deserting him. To hold out longer would be 
destruction, and to fly was scarcely an easier task. 
In the south lay the Cherokees, hereditary enemies 
of his people. In the west were the Osages and 
Missouries, treacherous and uncertain friends, and the 
fierce and jealous Dahcotah. In the east the forests 
would soon be filled with English traders, and beset 
with English troops, while in the north his own 
village of Detroit lay beneath the guns of the victo- 
rious garrison. He might, indeed, have found a par- 
tial refuge hi the remoter wilderness of the upper 
lakes ; but those dreary wastes would have doomed 
him to a life of unambitious exile. His resolution 
was taken. He determined to accept the peace 
which he knew would be proffered, to smoke the 
calumet with his triumphant enemies, and patiently 
await his hour of vengeance. 1 

o 

1 One of St. Ange's letters to Au- and motives of Pontiac similar to those 
bry contains views of the designs expressed above. 



550 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 



[Chap. XXX. 



The conferences at Fort Pitt concluded, Croghan 
left that place on the fifteenth of May, and em- 
barked on the Ohio, accompanied by several Dela- 
ware and Shawanoe deputies, whom he had per- 
suaded those newly-reconciled tribes to send with him, 
for the furtherance of his mission. At the mouth of 
the Scioto, he was met by a band of Shawanoe war- 
riors, who, in compliance with a message previously 
sent to them, delivered into his hands seven intriguing 
Frenchmen, who for some time past had lived in 
their villages. Thence he pursued his voyage smooth- 
ly and prosperously, until, on the eighth of June, 
he reached a spot a little below the mouth of the 
Wabash. Here he landed with his party ; when sud- 
denly the hideous war-whoop, the explosion of mus- 
ketry, and the whistling of arrows greeted him from 
the covert of the neighboring thickets. His men fell 
thick about him. Three Indians and two white men 
were shot dead on the spot; most of the remainder 
were wounded ; and on the next instant the survivors 
found themselves prisoners in the hands of eighty 
yelling Kickapoos, who plundered them of all they 
had. No sooner, however, was their prey fairly within 
their clutches, than the cowardly assailants began to 
apologize for what they had done, saying it was all 
a mistake, and that the French had set them on by 
telling them that the Indians who accompanied Cro- 
ghan were Cherokees, their mortal enemies ; excuses 
utterly without foundation, for the Kickapoos had 
dogged the party for several days, and perfectly un- 
derstood its character. 1 



1 A few days before, a boy belong- proved afterwards that he had been 
ing to Croghan's party had been lost, seized by the Kickapoo warriors, and 
as was supposed, in the woods. It was still prisoner among them at the 



Chap. XXX.] 



CROGHAN AT OUATANON. 



551 



It is superfluous to inquire into the causes of this 
attack. No man practically familiar with Indian 
character need be told the impossibility of foreseeing 
to what strange acts the wayward impulses of this 
murder-loving race may prompt them. Unstable as 
water, capricious as the winds, they seem in some of 
their moods like ungoverned children fired with the 
instincts of devils. In the present case, they knew 
that they hated the English — knew that they wanted 
scalps ; and thinking nothing of the consequences, 
they seized the first opportunity to gratify their rabid 
longing. This done, they thought it best to avert any 
probable effects of their misconduct by such false- 
hoods as might suggest themselves to their invention. 

Still apologizing for what they had done, but by 
no means suffering their prisoners to escape, they 
proceeded up the Wabash, to the little French fort 
and settlement of Vincennes, where, to his great joy, 
Croghan found among the assembled Indians some 
of his former friends and acquaintance. They re- 
ceived him kindly, and sharply rebuked the Kicka- 
poos, who, on their part, seemed much ashamed and 
crestfallen. From Vincennes the English were con- 
ducted, in a sort of honorable captivity, up the river 
to Ouatanon, where they arrived on the twenty- 
third, fifteen days after the attack, and where Cro- 
ghan was fortunate enough to find a great number 
of his former Indian friends, who received him, to 
appearance at least, with much cordiality. He took 
up his quarters in the fort, where there was at this 
time no garrison, a mob of French traders and Indians 

time of the attack. They must have of Croghan and his companions, 
learned from him the true character — MS. Gage Papers. 



552 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. [Chap. XXX. 



being the only tenants of the place. For several 
days, his time was engrossed with receiving deputa- 
tion after deputation from the various tribes and 
sub-tribes of the neighborhood, smoking pipes of 
peace, making and hearing speeches, and shaking 
hands with greasy warriors, who, one and all, were 
strong in their professions of good will, promising 
not only to regard the English as their friends, but 
to aid them, if necessary, in taking possession of the 
Illinois. 

While these amicable conferences were in progress, 
a miscreant Frenchman came from the Mississippi 
with a message from a chief of that region, urging 
the Indians of Ouatanon to burn the Englishman 
alive. Of this proposal the Indians signified their 
strong disapprobation, and assured the startled envoy 
that they would stand his friends — professions the 
sincerity of which, happily for him, was confirmed 
by the strong guaranty of their fears. 

The next arrival was that of Maisonville, a mes- 
senger from St. Ange, requesting Croghan to come 
to Fort Chartres, to adjust' affairs in that quarter. 
The invitation was in accordance with Croghan' s 
designs, and he left the fort on the following day, 
attended by Maisonville, and a concourse of the Oua- 
tanon Indians, who, far from regarding him as their 
prisoner, were now studious to show him every mark 
of respect. He had advanced but a short distance 
into the forest when he met Pontiac himself, who was 
on his way to Ouatanon, followed by a numerous train 
of chiefs and warriors. He gave his hand to the 
English envoy, and both parties returned together to 
the fort. Its narrow precincts were now crowded 
with Indians, a perilous multitude, dark, malignant, 



Chap. XXX.] 



PONTIAC OFFEKS PEACE. 



553 



inscrutable; and it behoved the Englishman to be 
wary in his dealings with them, since a breath 
might kindle afresh the wildfire in their hearts. 

At a meeting of the chiefs and warriors, Pontiac 
ottered the calumet and belt of peace, and professed 
his concurrence with the chiefs of Ouatanon in the 
friendly sentiments which they expressed towards the 
English. The French, he added, had deceived him, 
telling him and his people that the English meant 
to enslave the Indians of the Illinois, and turn 
loose upon them their enemies the Cherokees. It 
was this which drove him to arms; and now that he 
knew the story to be false, he would no longer 
stand in the path of the English. Yet they must 
not imagine that, in taking possession of the French 
forts, they gained any right to the country ; for the 
French had never bought the land, and lived upon 
it by sufferance only. 

As this meeting with Pontiac and the Illinois 
chiefs made it needless for Croghan to advance 
farther on his western journey, he now bent his 
footsteps towards Detroit, and, followed by Pontiac 
and many of the principal chiefs, crossed over to 
Fort Miami, and thence descended the Maumee, hold- 
ing conferences at the several villages which he 
passed on his way. On the seventeenth of August, 
he reached Detroit, where he found a great gather- 
ing of Indians, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, and Ojib- 
was ; some encamped about the fort, and others 
along the banks of the River Rouge. They obeyed 
his summons to a meeting with ready alacrity, 
partly from a desire to win the good graces of a 
potent and victorious enemy, and partly from the 
importunate craving for liquor and presents, which 
70 uu 



554 



KUIX OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 



[Chap. XXX. 



never slumbers in an Indian breast. Numerous 
meetings were held, and the old council-hall where 
Pontiac had essayed his scheme of abortive treachery 
was now crowded with repentant warriors, anxious, 
by every form of submission, to appease the con- 
queror. Their ill success, their fears of chastise- 
ment, and the miseries they had endured from the 
long suspension of the fur-trade, had banished from 
their minds every thought of hostility. They were 
glad, they said, that the dark clouds were now dis- 
persing, and the sunshine of peace once more re- 
turning ; and since all the nations to the sunrising 
had taken their great father the King of England 
by the hand, they also wished to do the same. 
They now saw clearly that the French were indeed 
conquered; and thenceforth they would listen no 
more to the whistling of evil birds, but lay clown 
the war-hatchet, and sit quiet on their mats. Among 
those who appeared to make or renew their submis- 
sion was the Grand Sauteur, the sanguinary chief 
who had led the massacre at Michillimackinac, and 
who, a few years after, expiated his evil deeds by a 
bloody death. He now pretended great regret for 
what he had done. " We red people," he said, " are 
a very jealous and foolish people; but, father, there 
are some among the white men worse than we are, 
and they have told us lies, and deceived us. There- 
fore we hope you will take pity on our women and 
children, and grant us peace." A band of Potta- 
wattamies from St. Joseph's were also present, and, 
after excusing themselves for their past conduct by 
the stale plea of the uncontrollable temper of their 
young men, their orator proceeded as follows : — 
" We are no more than wild creatures to you, 



Chap. XXX.] CONFERENCES AT DETROIT. 



555 



fathers, in understanding ; therefore we request you 
to forgive the past follies of our young people, and 
receive us for your children. Since you have thrown 
down our former father on his back, we have been 
wandering in the dark, like blind people. Now you 
have dispersed all this darkness, which hung over 
the heads of the several tribes, and have accepted 
them for your children, we hope you will let us 
partake with them the light, that our women and 
children may enjoy peace. We beg you to forget 
all that is past. By this belt we remove all evil 
thoughts from your hearts. 

" Fathers, when we formerly came to visit our 
fathers the French, they always sent us home joy- 
ful; and we hope you, fathers, will have pity on 
our women and young men, who are in great want 
of necessaries, and not let us go home to our towns 
ashamed." 

On the twenty-seventh of August, Croghan held a 
meeting with the Ottawas, and the other tribes of 
Detroit and Sandusky ; when, adopting their own 
figurative language, he addressed them in the follow- 
ing speech, in which, as often happened when white 
men borrowed the tongue of the forest orator, he 
lavished a more unsparing profusion of imagery than 
the Indians themselves : — 

" Children, we are very glad to see so many of 
you here present at your ancient council-fire, which 
has been neglected for some time past ; since then, 
high winds have blown, and raised heavy clouds 
over your country. I now, by this belt, rekindle 
your ancient fire, and throw dry wood upon it, that 
the blaze may ascend to heaven, so that all nations 



556 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 



[Chap. XXX. 



may see it, and know that you live in peace and 
tranquillity with your fathers the English. 

" By this belt I disperse all the black clouds from 
over your heads, that the sun may shine clear on 
your women and children, that those unborn may 
enjoy the blessings of this general peace, now so 
happily settled between your fathers the English 
and you, and all your younger brethren to the sun- 
setting. 

" Children, by this belt I gather up all the bones 
of your deceased friends, and bury them deep in 
the ground, that the buds and sweet flowers of the 
earth may grow over them, that we may not see 
them any more. 

" Children, with this belt I take the hatchet out 
of your hands, and pluck up a large tree, and bury 
it deep, so that it may never be found any more ; 
and I plant the tree of peace, which all our chil- 
dren may sit under, and smoke in peace with their 
fathers. 

" Children, we have made a road from the sun- 
rising to the sunsetting. I desire that you will pre- 
serve that road good and pleasant to travel upon, 
that we may all share the blessings of this happy 
union." 

On the following day, Pontiac spoke in behalf of 
the several nations assembled at the council. 

" Father, we have all smoked out of this pipe of 
peace. It is your children's pipe; and as the war is 
all over, and the Great Spirit and Giver of Light, 
who has made the earth and every thing therein, 
has brought us all together this day for our mutual 
good, I declare to all nations that I have settled 



Chap.XXX.1 peace speech of pontiac. 557 

my peace with you before I came here, and now 
deliver my pipe to be sent to Sir William Johnson, 
that he may know I have made peace, and taken 
the King of England for my father, in presence of 
all the nations now assembled; and whenever any 
of those nations go to visit him, they may smoke 
out of it with him in peace. Fathers, we are 
obliged to you for lighting up our old council-fire 
for us, and desiring us to return to it; but we are 
now settled on the Miami River, not far from 
hence : whenever you want us, you will find us 
there." 1 

" Our people," he added, " love liquor, and if we 
dwelt near you hi our old village of Detroit, our 
warriors would be always drunk, and quarrels would 
arise between us and you." Drunkenness was, in 
truth, the bane of the whole unhappy race; but 
Pontiac, too thoroughly an Indian in his virtues and 



1 Journal of George Croghan, on 
his journey to the Illinois, 1765. 
This journal has been twice pub- 
lished — in the appendix to Butler's 
History of Kentucky, and in the 
" Pioneer History " of Dr. Hildreth. 
A manuscript copy also may be 
found in the office of the secretary 
of state at Albany. Dr. Hildreth 
omits the speech of Croghan to the 
Indians, which is given above as 
affording a better example of the 
forms of speech appropriate to an 
Indian peace harangue, than the 
genuine productions of the Indians 
themselves, who are less apt to in- 
dulge in such a redundancy of met- 
aphor. 

A language extremely deficient in 
words of general and abstract signifi- 
cation renders the use of figures 
indispensable ; and it is from this 
cause, above all others, that the flow- 
ers of Indian rhetoric derive their 
origin. In the work of Heckewelder 



will be found a list of numerous fig- 
urative expressions appropriate to 
the various occasions of public and 
private intercourse — forms which 
are seldom departed from, and which 
are often found identical among 
tribes speaking languages radically 
distinct. Thus, among both Iroquois 
and Algonquins, the " whistling of 
evil buds " is the invariable expres- 
sion to denote evil tidings or bad 
advice. 

The Indians are much pleased 
when white men whom they respect 
adopt their peculiar symbolical lan- 
guage—a circumstance of which the 
Jesuit missionaries did not fail to 
avail themselves. "These people/' 
says Father Le Jeune, " being great 
orators, and often using allegories 
and metaphors, our fathers, in order 
to attract them to God, adapt them- 
selves to their custom of speaking, 
which delights them very much, see- 
ing we succeed as well as they." 



558 



RUIN OF THE INDIAN CAUSE. 



[Chap. XXX. 



his vices to be free from its destructive taint, con- 
cluded his speech with the common termination of 
an Indian harangue, and desired that the rum barrel 
might be opened, and his thirsty warriors allowed to 
drink. 

At the end of September, having brought these 
protracted conferences to a close, Croghan left De- 
troit, and departed for Niagara, whence, after a short 
delay, he passed eastward, to report the results of 
his mission to the commander-in-chief. But before 
leaving the Indian country, he exacted from Pontiac 
a promise that in the spring he would descend to 
Oswego, and, in behalf of the tribes lately banded 
in his league, conclude a treaty of peace and amity 
with Sir William Johnson. 1 

Croghan' s efforts had been attended with signal 
success. The tribes of the west, of late bristling in 
defiance, and hot for fight, had craved forgiveness, 
and proffered the peaceful calumet. The war was 
over ; the last flickerings of that wide conflagration 
had died away; but the embers still glowed beneath 
the ashes, and fuel and a breath alone were wanting 
to rekindle those desolating fires. 

In the mean time, a hundred Highlanders of the 
42d Regiment, those veterans whose battle-cry had 
echoed over the bloodiest fields of America, had left 
Fort Pitt under command of Captain Sterling, and, 
descending the Ohio, undeterred by the rigor of the 

1 In a letter to Gage, without a than any Indian I ever saw could do 

date, but sent in the same enclosure among his own tribe. He, and all 

as his journal, Croghan gives his im- the principal men of those nations, 

pression of Pontiac in the following seem at present to be convinced that 

words : — the French had a view of interest in 

"Pondiac is a shrewd, sensible stirring up the late differences be- 

Indian, of few words, and commands tween his majesty's subjects and 

more respect among bis own nation them, and call it a beaver war/ 1 



Chap. XXX.] THE ENGLISH AT THE ILLINOIS. 



559 



season, arrived at Fort Chartres just as the snows 
of early winter began to whiten the naked forests. 1 
The flag of France descended from the rampart ; 
and with the stern courtesies of war, St. Ange 
yielded up his post, the citadel of the Illinois, 
to its new masters. In that act was consummated 
the double triumph of British power in America. 
England had crushed her hereditary foe ; and France, 
in her fall, had left to irretrievable rum the savage 
tribes to whom her policy and self-interest had lent 
a transient support. 

1 MS. Gage Papers. M. Nicol- mistake. Pontiac's reconciliation 
let, in speaking of the arrival of had already taken place, and he 
the British troops, says, "At this had abandoned all thoughts of re- 
news Pontiac raved." This is a sistance. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 

The winter passed quietly away. Already the 
Indians began to feel the blessings of returning 
peace in the partial reopening of the fur-trade; 
and the famine and nakedness, the misery and death, 
which through the previous season had been rife in 
their encampments, were exchanged for comparative 
comfort and abundance. With many precautions, 
and in meagre allowances, the traders had been per- 
mitted to throw their goods into the Indian market, 
and the starving hunters were no longer left, as 
many of them had been, to gain precarious suste- 
nance by the bow, the arrow, and the lance — 
the half-forgotten weapons of their fathers. Some 
troubles arose along the frontiers of Pennsylvania 
and Virginia. The reckless borderers, in contempt 
of common humanity and prudence, murdered sev- 
eral straggling Indians, and enraged others by abuse 
and insult; but these outrages could not obliterate 
the remembrance of recent chastisement, and for the 
present, at least, the injured warriors forbore to 
draw down the fresh vengeance of their destroyers. 

Spring returned, and Pontiac remembered the 
promise he had made to visit Sir William Johnson 
at Oswego. He left his encampment on the Maumee, 
accompanied by his chiefs, and by an Englishman 



Chap. XXXI.] 



POXTIAC AT OSWEGO. 



561 



named Crawford, a man of vigor and resolution, who 
had been appointed, by the superintendent, to the 
troublesome office of attending the Indian deputation, 
and supplying their wants. 1 

We may well imagine with w^hat bitterness of 
mood the defeated war-chief urged his canoe along 
the margin of Lake Erie, and gazed upon the hori- 
zon-bounded waters, and the lofty shores, green with 
primeval verdure. Little could he have dreamed, 
and little could the wisest of that day have imagined, 
that, within the space of a single human life, that 
lonely lake would be studded with the sails of com- 
merce; that cities and villages would rise upon the 
ruins of the forest; and that the poor mementoes of 
his lost race — the wampum beads, the rusty toma- 
hawk, and the arrowhead of stone, turned up by the 
ploughshare — would become the wonder of school- 
boys, and the prized relics of the antiquary's cab- 
inet. Yet it needed no prophetic eye to foresee that, 
sooner or later, the doom must come. The star of 
his people's destiny was fading from the sky, and, 
to a mind like his, the black and withering future 
must have stood revealed in all its desolation. 

The birchen flotilla gained the outlet of Lake 
Erie, and, shooting downwards with the stream, 
landed beneath the palisades of Fort Schlosser. 
The chiefs passed the portage, and, once more em- 
barking, pushed out upon Lake Ontario. Soon their 
goal was reached, and the cannon boomed hollow 
salutation from the batteries of Oswego. 

Here they found Sir William Johnson waiting to 
receive them, attended by the chief sachems of the 

1 MS. Johnson Papers. 

71 



562 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap XXXI. 



Iroquois, whom he had invited to the spot, that 
their presence might give additional weight and 
solemnity to the meeting. As there was no building 
large enough to receive so numerous a concourse, a 
canopy of green boughs was erected to shade the 
assembly from the sun ; and thither, on the twenty- 
third of July, repaired the chiefs and warriors of 
the several nations. Here stood the tall figure of 
Sir William Johnson, surrounded by civil and mil- 
itary officers, clerks, and interpreters, while before 
him reclined the painted sachems of the Iroquois, 
and the great Ottawa war-chief, with his dejected 
followers. 

Johnson opened the meeting with the usual for- 
malities, presenting his auditors with a belt of wam- 
pum to wipe the tears from their eyes, with another 
to cover the bones of their relatives, another to 
open their ears that they might hear, and another 
to clear their throats that they might speak with 
ease. Then, amid solemn silence, Pontiac's great 
peace-pipe was lighted and passed round the assem- 
bly, each man present inhaling a whiff of the sacred 
smoke. These tedious forms, together with a few 
speeches of compliment, consumed the whole morn- 
ing; for this savage people, on whose supposed sim- 
plicity poets and rhetoricians have lavished their 
praises, may challenge the world to outmatch their 
bigoted adherence to usage and ceremonial. 

On the following day, the council began in earnest, 
and Sir William Johnson addressed Pontiac and his 
attendant chiefs. 

" Children, I bid you heartily welcome to this 
place ; and I trust that the Great Spirit will permit 
us often to meet together in friendship, for I have 



Chap. XXXI.] SPEECH OF SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 



563 



now opened the door and cleared the road, that all 
nations may come hither from the sunsetting. This 
belt of wampum confirms my words. 

" Children, it gave me much pleasure to find that 
you who are present behaved so well last year, and 
treated in so friendly a manner Mr. Croghan, one 
of my deputies, and that you expressed such con- 
cern for the bad behavior of those, who, in order to 
obstruct the good work of peace, assaulted and 
wounded him, and killed some of his party, both 
whites and Indians ; a thing before unknown, and 
contrary to the laws and customs of all nations. 
This would have drawn down our strongest resent- 
ment upon those who were guilty of so heinous a 
crime, were it not for the great lenity and kindness 
of your English father, who does not delight in 
punishing those who repent sincerely of their faults. 

" Children, I have now, with the approbation of 
General Gage, (your father's chief warrior in this 
country,) invited you here in order to confirm and 
strengthen your proceedings with Mr. Croghan last 
year. I hope that you will remember all that then 
passed, and I desire that you will often repeat it 
to your young people, and keep it fresh in your 
minds. 

"Children, you begin already to see the fruits of 
peace, from the number of traders and plenty of 
goods at all the garrisoned posts ; and our enjoying 
the peaceable possession of the Illinois will be 
found of great advantage to the Indians in that 
country. You likewise see that proper officers, men 
of honor and probity, are appointed to reside at the 
posts, to prevent abuses in trade, to hear your com- 
plaints, and to lay before me such of them as they 



564 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XXXI 



cannot redress. 1 Interpreters are likewise sent for 
the assistance of each of them ; and smiths are sent 
to the posts to repair your arms and implements. 
All this, which is attended with a great expense, is 
now done by the great king, your father, as a proof 
of his regard; so that, casting from you all jealousy 
and apprehension, you should now strive with each 
other who should show the most gratitude to this 
best of princes. I do now, therefore, confirm the 
assurances which I give you of his majesty's good 
will, and do insist on your casting away all evil 
thoughts, and shutting your ears against all flying 
idle reports of bad people." 

The rest of Johnson's speech was occupied in 
explaining to his hearers the new arrangements for 
the regulation of the fur-trade; in exhorting them 
to forbear from retaliating the injuries they might 
receive from reckless white men, who would meet 
with due punishment from their own countrymen ; 
and in urging them to deliver up to justice those 
of their people who might be guilty of crimes 
against the English. " Children," he concluded, " I 
now, by this belt, turn your eyes to the sunrising, 
where you will always find me your sincere friend. 
From me you will always hear what is true and 
good; and I charge you never more to listen to 
those evil birds, who come, with lying tongues, to 
lead you astray, and to make you break the solemn 
engagements which you have entered into in presence 

1 The lords of trade had recently their traffic under the eye of proper 

adopted a new plan for the manage- officers, instead of ranging at will, 

ment of Indian affairs, the principal without supervision or control, among 

feature of which was the confine- the Indian villages. It was found 

ment of the traders to the military extremely difficult to enforce this 

posts, where they would conduct regulation. 



Chap. XXXI.] PONTIAC'S REPLY TO JOHNSON. 



565 



of the Great Spirit, with the king your father and 
the English people. Be strong, then, and keep fast 
hold of the chain of friendship, that your children, 
following your example, may live happy and prosper- 
ous lives." 

Pontiac made a brief reply, and promised to return 
on the morrow an answer in full. The meeting then 
broke up. 

The council of the next day was opened by the 
Wyandot chief, Teata, in a short and formal address ; 
at the conclusion of which Pontiac himself arose, 
and addressed the superintendent in the following 
words : — 

"Father, w T e thank the Great Spirit for giving us 
so fine a day to meet upon such great affairs. I 
speak in the name of all the nations to the west- 
ward, of whom I am the master. It is the will of 
the Great Spirit that we should meet here to-day ; 
and before him I now take you by the hand. I 
call him to witness that I speak from my heart ; 
for since I took Colonel Croghan by the hand last 
year, I have never let go my hold, for I see that the 
Great Spirit will have us friends. 

" Father, when our great father of France was in 
this country, I held him fast by the hand. Now 
that he is gone, I take you, my English father, by 
the hand, in the name of all the nations, and prom- 
ise to keep this covenant as long as I shall live." 

Here he delivered a large belt of wampum. 

" Father, when you address me, it is the same as 
; if you addressed all the nations of the west. Father, 
I this belt is to cover and strengthen our chain of 
friendship, and to show you that, if any nation shall 



566 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XXXI. 



lift the hatchet against our English brethren, we 
shall be the first to feel it and resent it." 

Pontiac next took up in succession the various 
points touched upon in the speech of the superin- 
tendent, expressing in all things a full compliance 
with his wishes. The succeeding days of the confer- 
ence, were occupied with matters of detail relating 
chiefly to the fur- trade, all of which were adjusted 
to the apparent satisfaction of the Indians, who, on 
their part, made reiterated professions of friendship. 
Pontiac promised to recall the war-belts which had 
been sent to the north and west, though, as he 
alleged, many of them had proceeded from the Sene- 
cas, and not from him, adding that, when all were 
gathered together, they would be more than a man 
could carry. The Iroquois sachems then addressed 
the western nations, exhorting them to stand true to 
their engagements, and hold fast the chain of friend- 
ship ; and the councils closed on the thirty-first, with 
a bountiful distribution of presents to Pontiac and 
his followers. 1 

Thus ended this memorable meeting, in which 
Pontiac sealed his submission to the English, and 
renounced forever the bold design by which he had 
trusted to avert or retard the ruin of his race. His 
hope of seeing the empire of France restored in 
America was scattered to the winds, and with it van- 
ished every rational scheme of resistance to English 
encroachment. Nothing now remained but to stand 

1 MS. Minutes of Proceedings at a A copy of this document is pre- 

Congress with Pontiac and Chiefs of served in the office of the secretary 

the Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Hu- of state at Albany, among the papers 

rons, and Chippewais ; begun at Os- procured in London by Mr. Brod- 

wego, Tuesday, July 23, 1766. head. 



Chap. XXXI.] FKESH DISTURBANCES. 



567 



an idle spectator, while, in the north and in the 
south, the tide of British power rolled westward in 
resistless might; while the fragments of the rival 
empire, which he would fain have set up as a barrier 
against the flood, lay scattered a miserable wreck; 
and while the remnant of his people melted away or 
fled for refuge to remoter deserts. For them the 
prospects of the future were as clear as they were 
calamitous. Destruction or civilization — between 
these lay their choice, and few who knew them could 
doubt which alternative they would embrace. 

Pontiac, his canoe laden with the gifts of his en- 
emy, steered homeward for the Maumee; and in this 
vicinity he spent the following winter, pitching his 
lodge in the forest with his wives and children, and 
hunting like an ordinary warrior. With the suc- 
ceeding spring, 1767, fresh murmurings of discontent 
arose among the Indian tribes, from the lakes to the 
Potomac, the first precursors of the disorders which, 
a few years later, ripened into a brief but bloody 
war along the borders of Virginia. These threaten- 
ing symptoms might easily be traced to their source. 
The incorrigible frontiersmen had again let loose 
their murdering propensities; and a multitude of 
squatters had built their cabins on Indian lands be- 
yond the limits of Pennsylvania, adding insult to 
aggression, and sparing neither oaths, curses, nor any 
form of abuse and maltreatment against the rightful 
owners of the soil. 1 The new regulations of the fur- 
trade could not prevent disorders among the reckless 
men engaged in it. This was particularly the case 



1 "It seems," writes Sir William 
i] Johnson to the lords of trade, "as 
if the people were determined to 



bring on a new war, though their 
own ruin may be the consequence." 



568 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. [Chap. XXXI. 



in the region of the Illinois, where the evil was 
aggravated by the renewed intrigues of the French, 
and especially of those who had fled from the English 
side of the Mississippi, and made their abode around 
the new settlement of St. Louis. 1 It is difficult to 
say how far Pontiac was involved in this agitation. 
It is certain that some of the English traders re- 
garded him with jealousy and fear, as prime mover 
of the whole, and eagerly watched an opportunity 
to destroy him. 

The discontent among the tribes did not diminish 
with the lapse of time ; yet for many months we 
can discern no trace of Pontiac. Records and tra- 
ditions are silent concerning him. It is not until 
April, 1769, that he appears once more distinctly on 
the scene. 2 At about that time he came to the Illi- 
nois, with what design does not appear, though his 
movements excited much uneasiness among the few 
English in that quarter. Soon after his arrival, he 
repaired to St. Louis, to visit his former acquaint- 
ance, St. Ange, who was then in command at that 
post, having offered his services to the Spaniards 
after the cession of Louisiana. After leaving the 
fort, Pontiac proceeded to the house of which young 
Pierre Chouteau was an inmate ; and to the last 
days of his protracted life, the latter could vividly 
recall the circumstances of the interview. The sav- 
age chief was arrayed in the full uniform of a 



1 Doc. Hist. N.Y. II. 861-893, etc. 
MS. Johnson Papers. MS. Gage 
Papers. 

2 Carver says that Pontiac was 
killed in 1767. This may possibly 
be a mere printer's error. In the 
Maryland Gazette, and also in the 
Pennsylvania Gazette, were pub- 
lished during the month of August, 



1769, several letters from the Indian 
country, in which Pontiac is men- 
tioned as having been killed during 
the preceding April. M. Chouteau 
states that, to the best of his recol- 
lection, the chief was killed in 1768 ; 
but oral testimony is of little weight 
in regard to dates. The evidence 
of the Gazettes appears conclusive. 



Chap. XXXI.] 



CAHOKIA. 



569 



French officer, which had been presented to him as 
a special mark of respect and favor by the Marquis 
of Montcalm, towards the close of the French war, 
and which Pontiac never had the bad taste to wear, 
except on occasions when he wished to appear with 
unusual dignity. St. Ange, Chouteau, and the other 
principal inhabitants of the infant settlement, whom 
he visited in turn, all received him with cordial wel- 
come, and did their best to entertain him and his 
attendant chiefs. He remained at St. Louis for two 
or three days, when, hearing that a large number 
of Indians were assembled at Cahokia, on the oppo- 
site side of the river, and that some drinking bout 
or other social gathering was in progress, he told 
St. Ange that he would cross over to see what was 
going forward. St. Ange tried to dissuade him, and 
urged the risk to which he would expose himself; 
but Pontiac persisted, boasting that he was a match 
for the English, and had no fear for his life. He 
entered a canoe with some of his followers, and Chou- 
teau never saw him again. 

He who, at the present day, crosses from the city 
of St. Louis to the opposite shore of the Mississippi, 
and passes southward through a forest festooned with 
grape-vines, and fragrant with the scent of flowers, 
will soon emerge upon the ancient hamlet of Cahokia. 
To one fresh from the busy suburbs of the American 
city, the small French houses, scattered in picturesque 
disorder, the light-hearted, thriftless look of their in- 
mates, and the woods which form the background 
of the picture, seem like the remnants of an earlier 
and simpler world. Strange changes have passed 
around that spot. Forests have fallen, cities have 
sprung up, and the lonely wilderness is thronged with 
72 ' vv* 



570 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XXXI. 



human life. Nature herself has taken part in the 
general transformation, and the Mississippi has made 
a fearful inroad, robbing from the luckless Creoles a 
mile of rich meadow and woodland. Yet, in the midst 
of all, this relic of the lost empire of France has 
preserved its essential features through the lapse of 
a century, and offers at this day an aspect not widely 
different from that which met the eye of Pontiac, 
when he and his chiefs landed on its shore. 

The place was full of Illinois Indians; such a 
scene as in our own time may often be met with 
in some squalid settlement of the border, where the 
vagabond guests, bedizened with dirty finery, tie their 
small horses in rows along the fences, and stroll 
idly among the houses, or lounge about the dram- 
shops. A chief so renowned as Pontiac could not 
remain long among the friendly Creoles of Cahokia 
without being summoned to a feast; and at such 
primitive entertainment the whiskey bottle would not 
fail to play its part. This was in truth the case. 
Pontiac drank deeply, and, when the carousal was 
over, strode down the village street to the adjacent 
woods, where he was heard to sing the medicine 
songs, in whose magic power he trusted as the war- 
rant of success in all his undertakings. 

An English trader, named Williamson, was then 
in the village. He had looked on the movements of 
Pontiac with a jealousy probably not diminished by 
the visit of the chief to the French at St. Louis ; 
and he now resolved not to lose so favorable an op- 
portunity to despatch him. With this view, he gained 
the ear of a strolling Indian belonging to the Kas- 
kaskia tribe of the Illinois, bribed him with a barrel 
of liquor, and promised him a farther reward if he 



Chap. XXXI.] 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



571 



would kill the chief. The bargain was quickly made. 
When Pontiac entered the forest, the assassin stole 
close upon his track, and, watching his moment, glided 
behind him, and buried a tomahawk in his brain. 

The dead body was soon discovered, and startled 
cries and wild bowlings announced the event. The 
word was caught up from mouth to mouth, and the 
place resounded with infernal yells. The warriors 
snatched their weapons. The Illinois took part with 
their guilty countryman, and the few followers of 
Pontiac, driven from the village, fled to spread the 
tidings and call the nations to revenge. Meanwhile 
the murdered chief lay on the spot where he had 
fallen, until St. Ange, mindful of former friendship, 
sent to claim the body, and buried it with warlike 
honors, near his fort of St. Louis. 1 

Thus basely perished this champion of a ruined 
race. But could his shade have revisited the scene 



1 Carver, Travels, 166, says that from M. Chouteau and from the no 

Pontiac was stabbed at a public less respectable authority of the aged 

council in the Illinois, by " a faithful Pierre Menard of Kaskaskia. The 

Indian who was either commissioned notices of Pontiac's death in the pro- 

by one of the English governors, or in- vincial journals of the day, to a cer- 

stigated by the love he bore the Eng- tain extent, confirm this story. We 

lish nation." This account is without gather from them, that he was killed 

sufficient confirmation. Carver, who at the Illinois, by one or more Kas- 

did not visit the Illinois, must have kaskia Indians, during a drunken 

drawn his information from hearsay, frolic, and in consequence of his hos- 

The open manner of dealing with his tility to the English. One letter, 

victim, which he ascribes to the as- however, states on hearsay that he 

sassin, is wholly repugnant to Indian was killed near Fort Chartres, and 

character and principles ; while the Gouin's traditional account seems to 

gross charge, thrown out at random support the statement. On this point, 

against an English governor, might I have followed the distinct and cir- 

of itself cast discredit on the story. cumstantial narrative of Chouteau, 

I have followed the account which supported as it is by Cerre. M. 

I received from M. Pierre Chou Chouteau's recollections, as already 

teau, and from M. P. L. Cerre, mentioned, are in general remarka- 

another old inhabitant of the Illinois, ble for their singularly close accord- 

whose father was well acquainted ance with contemporary documents, 
with Pontiac. The same account I am indebted to the kindness of 

may be found, concisely stated, in my friend Mr. Lyman C. Draper for 

Nicollet, p. 81. M. Nicollet states valuable assistance in my inquiries 

that he derived his information both in relation to Pontiac's death. 



572 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



[Chap. XXXI. 



of murder, his savage spirit would have exulted in 
the vengeance which overwhelmed the abetters of the 
crime. Whole tribes were rooted out to expiate it. 
Chiefs and sachems, whose veins had thrilled with 
his eloquence, young warriors, whose aspiring hearts 
had caught the inspiration of his greatness, mus- 
tered to revenge his fate, and from the north and 
the east, their united bands descended on the villages 
of the Illinois. Tradition has but faintly preserved 
the memory of the event ; and its only annalists, men 
who held the intestine feuds of the savage tribes in 
no more account than the quarrels of panthers or 
wildcats, have left but a meagre record. Yet enough 
remains to tell us that over the grave of Pontiac 
more blood was poured out in atonement than flowed 
from the hecatombs of slaughtered heroes on the 
corpse of Patroclus ; and the remnant of the Illinois 
who survived the carnage remained forever after sunk 
in utter insignificance. 1 



1 " This murder, which roused the 
vengeance of all the Indian tribes 
friendly to Pontiac, brought about the 
successive wars, and almost total ex- 
termination, of the Illinois nation." — 
Nicollet, 82. 

"The Kaskaskias, Peorias, Caho- 
kias, and Illonese are nearly all de- 
stroyed by the Sacs and Foxes, for 
killing in cool blood, and in time of 
peace, the Sac's chief, Pontiac." — 
Mass. Hist. Coll. Second Series, II. 8. 

The above extract exhibits the 
usual confusion of Indian names, the 
Kaskaskias, Peorias, and Cahokias 
being component tribes of the Illo- 
nese or Illinois nation. Pontiac is 
called a chief of the Sacs. This, 
with similar mistakes, may easily have 
arisen from the fact that he was ac- 
customed to assume authority over 
the warriors of any tribe with whom 
he chanced to be in contact. 



Morse says, in his Report, 1822, 
"In the war kindled against these 
tribes, [Peorias, Kaskaskias, and Ca- 
hokias,] by the Sauks and Foxes, in 
revenge for the death of their chief, 
Pontiac, these 3 tribes were nearly 
exterminated. Few of them now re- 
main. About one hundred of the 
Peorias are settled on Current River, 
W. of the Mississippi; of the Kas- 
kaskias 36 only remain in Illinois." 
— Morse, 363. 

General Gage, in his letter to Sir 
William Johnson, dated July 10, 
176-, says, " The death of Pontiac, 
committed by an Indian of the Illi- 
nois, believed to have been excited 
by the English to that action, had 
drawn many of the Ottawas and other 
northern nations towards their coun- 
try to revenge his death." 

"From Miami, Pontiac went to 
Fort Chartres on the Illinois. In a 



Chap. XXXI.] 



DEATH OF PONTIAC. 



573 



Neither mound nor tablet marked the burial-place 
of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above 
the forest hero; and the race whom he hated with 
such burning rancor trample with unceasing footsteps 
over his forgotten grave. 



few years, the English, who had pos- 
session of the fort, procured an Indian 
of the Peoria [Kaskaskia] nation to 
kill him. The news spread like 
lightning through the country. The 
Indians assembled in great numbers, 
attacked and destroyed all the Peo- 
rias, except about thirty families, 
which were received into the fort. 
These soon began to increase. They 
removed to the Wabash, and were 
about to settle, when the Indians col- 
lected in the winter, surrounded their 
village, and killed the whole, except- 
ing a few children, who were saved 
as prisoners. Old Mr. Gouin was 
there at the time. He was a trader, 



and, when the attack commenced, was 
ordered by the Indians to shut his 
house and not surfer a Peoria to en- 
ter." — Goulds Account, MS. 

Pontiac left several children, whose 
names may occasionally be found in 
the minutes of treaties and confer- 
ences held a few years after his 
death. In a letter addressed to the 
writer, Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft says, 
" I knew Atoka, a descendant of Pon- 
tiac. He was the chief of an Ot- 
tawa village on the Maumee. A few 
years ago, he agreed to remove, with 
his people, to the west of the Mis- 
sissippi, where he is probably yet 
living." 



APPENDIX A. 



THE IROQUOIS. — EXTENT OF THEIR CONQUESTS. — POLICY 
PURSUED TOWARDS THEM BY THE FRENCH AND THE 
ENGLISH. — MEASURES OF SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON. 



1. Territory of the Iroquois, (p. 6.) 

Extract from a Letter — Sir W. Johnson to the Board of Trade, 
November 13, 1763. 

My Lords : 

In obedience to your Lordships' commands of the 5th of August last, I 
am now to lay before you the claims of the Nations mentioned in the State 
of the Confederacies. The Five Nations having in the last century sub- 
dued the Shawanese, Delawares, Twighties, and Western Indians, so far 
as Lakes Michigan and Superior, received them into an alliance, allowed 
them the possession of the lands they occupied, and have ever since been in 
peace with the greatest part of them; and such was the prowess of the 
Five Nations' Confederacy, that had they been properly supported by us, 
they would have long since put a period to the Colony of Canada, which 
alone they were near effecting in the year 1688. Since that time, they 
have admitted the Tuscaroras from the Southward, beyond Oneida, and they 
have ever since formed a part of that Confederacy. 

As original proprietors, this Confederacy claim the country of their res- 
idence, south of Lake Ontario to the great Ridge of the Blue Mountains, 
with all the Western Part of the Province of New York towards Hudson 
River, west of the Catskill, thence to Lake Champlain, and from Regioghne, 
a Rock at the East side of said Lake, to Oswegatche or La Gallette, on the 
River St. Lawrence, (having long since ceded their claim north of said line 
in favor of the Canada Indians, as Hunting-ground,) thence up the River St. 
Lawrence, and along the South side of Lake Ontario to Niagara. 

In right of conquest, they claim all the country (comprehending the 
Ohio) along the great Ridge of Blue Mountains at the back of Virginia, 
thence to the head of Kentucky River, and down the same to the Ohio 



576 



APPENDIX A. 



above the Rifts, thence Northerly to the South end of Lake Michigan, then 
along the Eastern shore of said lake to Michillimackinac, thence Easterly 
across the North end of Lake Huron to the great Ottawa River, (including 
the Chippewa or Mississagey Country,) and down the said River to the 
Island of Montreal. However, these more distant claims being possessed 
by many powerful nations, the Inhabitants have long begun to render them- 
selves independent, by the assistance of the French, and the great decrease 
of the Six Nations ; but their claim to the Ohio, and thence to the Lakes, 
is not in the least disputed by the Shawanese, Delawares, &c, who never 
transacted any sales of land or other matters without their consent, and who 
sent Deputies to the grand Council at Onondaga on all important occasions. 



2. French and English Policy towards the Iroquois. — Measures 
or Sir William Johnson, (pp. 65-83.) 

Extract from a Letter — Sir W. Johnson to the Board of Trade, 
May 24, 1765. 

The Indians of the Six Nations, after the arrival of the English, having 
conceived a desire for many articles they introduced among them, and 
thereby rinding them of use to their necessities, or rather superfluities, cul- 
tivated an acquaintance with them, and lived in tolerable friendship with 
their Province for some time, to which they were rather inclined, for they 
were strangers to bribery, and at enmity with the French, who had espoused 
the cause of their enemies, supplied them with arms, and openly acted 
against them. This enmity increased in proportion as the desire of the 
French for subduing those people, who were a bar to their first projected 
schemes. However, we find the Indians, as far back as the very confused 
manuscript records in my possession, repeatedly upbraiding this province 
for their negligence, their avarice, and their want of assisting them at a 
time when it was certainly in their power to destroy the infant colony of 
Canada, although supported by many nations ; and this is likewise confessed 
by the writings of the managers of these times. The French, after re- 
peated losses, discovering that the Six Nations were not to be subdued, but 
that they could without much difficulty effect their purposes (which I have 
good authority to show were . . . standing) by favors and kindness, on a 
sudden, changed their conduct in the reign of Queen Anne, having first 
brought over many of their people to settle in Canada ; and ever since, by 
the most endearing kindnesses, and by a vast profusion of favors, have 
secured them to their interest ; and, whilst they aggravated our frauds and 
designs, they covered those committed by themselves under a load of gifts, 
which obliterated the malpractices of . . . among them, and enabled 
them to establish themselves wherever they pleased, without fomenting the 
Indians' jealousy. The able agents they made use of, and their unanimous 



APPENDIX A. 



577 



indefatigable zeal for securing the Indian interest, were so much superior to 
any thing we had ever attempted, and to the futile transactions of the . . . 
and trading Commissioners of Albany, that the latter became universally 
despised by the Indians, who daily withdrew from our interest, and con- 
ceived the most disadvantageous sentiments of our integrity and abilities. 
In this state of Indian affairs I was called to the management of these 
people, as my situation and opinion that it might become one day of service 
to the public, had induced me to cultivate a particular intimacy with these 
people, to accommodate myself to their manners, and even to their dress on 
many occasions. How I discharged this trust will best appear from the 
transactions of the war commenced in 1744, in which I was busily con- 
cerned. The steps I had then taken alarmed the jealousy of the French ; 
rewards were offered for me, and I narrowly escaped assassination on more 
than one occasion. The French increased their munificence to the Indians, 
whose example not being at all followed at New York, I resigned the man- 
agement of affairs on the ensuing peace, as I did not choose to continue in 
the name of an office which I was not empowered to discharge as its nature 
required. The Albany Commissioners (the men concerned in the clandes- 
tine trade to Canada, and frequently upbraided for it by the Indians) did 
then reassume their seats at that Board, and by their conduct so exasper- 
ated the Indians that several chiefs went to New York, 1753, when, after a 
severe speech to the Governor, Council, and Assembly, they broke the 
covenant chain of friendship, and withdrew in a rage. The consequences 
of which were then so much dreaded, that I was, by Governor, Council, and 
House of Assembly, the two latter then my enemies, earnestly entreated to 
effect a reconciliation with the Indians, as the only person equal to that 
task, as will appear by the Minutes of Council and resolves of the House. 
A commission being made out for me, I proceeded to Onondaga, and 
brought about the much wished for reconciliation, but declined having any 
further to say of Indian affairs, although the Indians afterwards refused to 
meet the Governor and Commissioners till I was sent for. At the arrival of 
General Braddock, I received his Commission with reluctance, at the same 
time assuring him that affairs had been so ill conducted, and the Indians so 
estranged from our interest, that I could not take upon me to hope for suc- 
cess. However, indefatigable labor, and (I hope I may say without vanity) 
personal interest, enabled me to exceed my own expectations ; and my con- 
duct since, if fully and truly known, would, I believe, testify that I have not 
been an unprofitable servant. 'Twas then that the Indians began to give 
public sign of their avaricious dispositions. The French had long taught 
them it; and the desire of some persons to carry a greater number of In- 
dians into the field in 1755 than those who accompanied me, induced them 
to employ any agent at a high salary, who had the least interest with the 
Indians ; and to grant the latter Captains' and Lieutenants' Commissions, (of 
which I have a number now by me,) with sterling pay, to induce them to 
j desert me, but to little purpose, for tho' many of them received the Commis- 
; sions, accompanied with large sums of money, they did not comply with 

73 



578 



APPENDIX A. 



the end proposed, but served with me ; and this had not only served them 
with severe complaints against the English, as they were not afterwards all 
paid what had been promised, but has established a spirit of pride and av- 
arice, which I have found it ever since impossible to subdue ; whilst our 
extensive connections since the reduction of Canada, with so many power- 
ful nations so long accustomed to partake largely of French bounty, has of 
course increased the expense, and rendered it in no small degree necessary 
for the preservation of our frontiers, outposts, and trade. . . . 

Extract from a Letter — Cadwallader Colden to the Earl of Halifax, 
December 22, 1763. 

Before I proceed further, I think it proper to inform your Lordship of 
the different state of the Policy of the Five Nations in different periods of 
time. Before the peace of Utrecht, the Five Nations were at war with the 
French in Canada, and with all the Indian Nations who were in friendship 
with the French. This put the Five Nations under a necessity of depend- 
ing on this province for a supply of every tiling by which they could carry 
on the war or defend themselves, and their behavior towards us was 
accordingly. 

After the peace of Utrecht, the French changed their measures. They 
took every method in their power to gain the friendship of the Five Nations, 
and succeeded so far with the Senecas, who are by far the most numerous, 
and at the greatest distance from us, that they were entirely brought over 
to the French interest. The French obtained the consent of the Senecas 
to the building of the Fort at Niagara, situated in their country. 

When the French had too evidently, before the last war, got the 
ascendant among all the Indian Nations, we endeavored to make the Indians 
jealous of the French power, that they were thereby in danger of becoming 
slaves to the French, unless they were protected by the English. . . . 



APPENDIX B. 



CAUSES OF THE INDIAN WAR. 



Extract from a Letter — Sir W. Johnson to the Board of Trade, 
November 13, 1763. (Chap. VII.) 

. . . The French, in order to reconcile them [the Indians] to their 
encroachments, loaded them with favors, and employed the most intelligent 
Agents of good influence, as well as artful Jesuits among the several 
Western and other Nations, who, by degrees, prevailed on them to admit of 
Forts, under the Notion of Trading houses, in their Country ; and knowing 
that these posts could never be maintained contrary to the inclinations of the 
Indians, they supplied them thereat with ammunition and other necessaries 
in abundance, as also called them to frequent congresses, and dismissed them 
with handsome presents, by which they enjoyed an extensive commerce, 
obtained the assistance of these Indians, and possessed their frontiers in 
safety ; and as without these measures the Indians would never have suf- 
fered them in their Country, so they expect that whatever European power 
possesses the same, they shall in some measure reap the like advantages. 
Now, as these advantages ceased on the Posts being possessed by the 
English, and especially as it was not thought prudent to indulge them 
with ammunition, they immediately concluded that we had designs against 
their liberties, which opinion had been first instilled into them by the French, 
and since promoted by Traders of that nation and others who retired among 
them on the surrender of Canada, and are still there, as well as by Belts of 
Wampum and other exhortations, which I am confidently assured have been 
sent among them from the Illinois, Louisiana and even Canada for that 
purpose. The Shawanese and Delawares about the Ohio, who were never 
warmly attached to us since our neglects to defend them against the 
encroachments of the French, and refusing to erect a post at the Ohio, or 
assist them and the Six Nations with men or ammunition, when they 
requested both of us, as well as irritated at the loss of several of their 
people killed upon the communication to Fort Pitt, in the years 1759 and 



580 



APPENDIX B. 



1761, were easily induced to join with the Western Nations, and the Sen- 
ecas, dissatisfied at man)' of our posts, jealous of our designs, and displeased 
at our neglect and contempt of them, soon followed their example. 

These are the causes the Indians themselves assign, and which certainly 
occasioned the rupture between us, the consequence of which, in my opinion, 
will be that the Indians (who do not regard the distance) will be supplied 
with necessaries by the Wabache and several Rivers, which empty into the 
Mississippi, which it is by no means in our power to prevent, and in return 
the French will draw the valuable furs down that river to the advantage of 
their Colony and the destruction of our Trade ; this will always induce the 
French to foment differences between us and the Indians, and the prospects 
many of them entertain, that they may hereafter become possessed of 
Canada, will incline them still more to cultivate a good understanding with 
the Indians, which, if ever attempted by the French, would, I am very 
apprehensive, be attended with a general defection of them from our interest, 
unless we are at great pains and expense to regain their friendship, and 
thereby satisfy them' that we have no designs to their prejudice, 

The grand matter of concern to all the Six Nations (Mohawks excepted) 
is the occupying a chain of small Posts on the communication thro' their 
country to Lake Ontario, not to mention Fort Stanwix, exclusive of which 
there were erected in 1759 Fort Schuyler on the Mohawk River, and the 
Royal Blockhouse at the East end of Oneida Lake, in the Country of the 
Oneidas, Fort Brewerton and a Post at Oswego Falls in the Onondagas 
Country ; in order to obtain permission for erecting these posts, they were 
promised they should be demolished at the end of the war. General Shir- 
ley also made them a like promise for the posts he erected ; and as 
about these posts are their fishing and hunting places, where they complain, 
that they are often obstructed by the troops and insulted, they request that 
they may not be kept up, the war with the French being now over. 

In 1760, Sir Jeffrey Amherst sent a speech to the Indians in writing, 
which was to be communicated to the Nations about Fort Pitt, &c, by 
General Monkton, then commanding there, signifying his intentions to 
satisfy and content all Indians for the ground occupied by the posts, as also 
for any land about them, which might be found necessary for the use of the 
garrisons ; but the same has not been performed, neither are the Indians in 
the several countries at all pleased at our occupying them, which they look 
upon as the first steps to enslave them and invade their properties. 

And I beg leave to represent to your Lordships, that one very material 
advantage resulting from a continuance of good treatment and some favors 
to the Indians, will be the security and toleration thereby given to the 
Troops for cultivating lands about the garrisons, which the reduction of 
their Rations renders absolutely necessary 



APPENDIX B. 



581 



Poxteach: or the Savages of America. A Tragedy. London: 
Printed for the Author ; and Sold by J. Millan, opposite the Admiralty, 
Whitehall. MDCCLXVf. (pp. 146-156.) 

The author of this tragedy was evidently a person well acquainted 
with Indian affairs and Indian character. Various allusions contained in it, 
as well as several peculiar forms of expression, indicate that Major Rogers 
had a share in its composition. The first act exhibits in detail the causes 
which led to the Indian war. The rest of the play is of a different character. 
The plot is sufficiently extravagant, and has little or no historical foundation. 
Chekitan, the son of Ponteach, is in love with Monelia, the daughter of 
Hendrick, Emperor of the Mohawks. Monelia is murdered by Chekitan's 
brother Philip, partly out of revenge and jealousy, and partly in furtherance 
of a scheme of policy. Chekitan kills Philip, and then dies by his own 
hand, and Ponteach, whose warriors meanwhile have been defeated by the 
English, overwhelmed by this accumulation of public and private calamities, 
retires to the forests of the west to escape the memory of his griefs. The 
style of the drama is superior to the plot, and the writer displays at times no 
small insight into the workings of human nature. 

The account of Indian wrongs and sufferings given in the first act 
accords so nearly with that conveyed in contemporary letters and documents, 
that two scenes from this part of the play are here given, with a few omis- 
sions, which good taste demands. 

ACT I. 

Scexe L — Ax Ixdiax Tradixg House. 
Enter M'Dole and Murphet, Two Indian Traders, and their Servants. 

M'Dole. So, Murphey, you are come to try your Fortune 
Among the Savages in this wild Besart ? 

Murphey. Ay, any thing to get an honest Living, 
Which, faith, I find it hard enough to do ; 
Times are so dull, and Traders are so plenty, 
That Gains are small, and Profits come but slow. 

M'Dole. Are you experienced in this kind of Trade ? 
Know you the Principles by which it prospers, 
And how to make it lucrative and safe ? 
If not, you're like a Ship without a Rudder, 
That drives at random, and must surely sink. 

Murphey. I'm unacquainted with your Indian Commerce 
And gladly would I learn the arts from you, 
Who're old, and practis'd in them many Years. 

W W * 



APPENDIX B. 



APDoU. That is the curst Misfortune of our Traders ; 
A thousand Fools attempt to live this Way, 
Who might as well turn Ministers of State. 
But. as you are a Friend, I will inform you 
Of all the secret Arts by which we thrive, 
Which if all practised, we might all grow rich, 
Nor circumvent each other in our Gains. 
What have you got to part with to the Indians ? 

Murphey. I've Rum and Blankets, Wampum, Powder, Bell 
And such like Trifles as they're wont to prize. 

JWDole. 'Tis very well : your Articles are good : 
But now the Thing's to make a Profit from them, 
Worth all your Toil and Pains of coming hither. 
Our fundamental Maxim then is this, 
That it's no Crime to cheat and gull an Indian. 

Murphey. How ! Not a Sin to cheat an Indian, say you ? 
Are they not Men ? hav'nt they a Right to Justice 
As well as we, though savage in their Manners ? 

M'Ddle. Ah ! If you boggle here, I say no more ; 
This is the very Quintessence of Trade, 
And ev'ry Hope of Gain depends upon it ; 
None who neglect it ever did grow rich, 
Or ever will, or can by Indian Commerce. 
By this old Ogden built his stately House, 
Purchased Estates, and grew a little King. 
He, like an honest Man, bought all by weight, 
And made the ign'rant Savages believe 
That his Right Foot exactly weighed a Pound. 
By this for many years he bought their Furs, 
And died in Quiet like an honest Dealer. 

Murphey. Well, I'll not stick at what is necessary ; 
But his Devise is now grown old and stale, 
Nor could I manage such a barefac'd Fraud. 

M'Dole. A thousand Opportunities present 
To take Advantage of their Ignorance ; 
But the great Engine I employ is Rum, 
More pow'rful made by certain strength'ning Drugs. 
This I distribute with a lib'ral Hand, 
Urge them to drink till they grow mad and valiant ; 
Which makes them think me generous and just, 
And gives full Scope to practise all my Art. 
I then begin my Trade with water'd Rum ; 
The cooling Draught well suits their scorching Throats. 
Their Fur and Peltry come in quick Return : 
My Scales are honest, but so well contriv'd, 
That one small Slip will turn Three Pounds to One ; 



APPENDIX B. 



583 



Which they, poor silly Souls ! ignorant of Weights 
And Rules of Balancing, do not perceive. 
But here they come ; you'll see how I proceed. 
Jack, is the Rum prepar'd as I commanded ? 

Jack. Yes, Sir, all's ready when you please to call. 

JWDole. Bring here the Scales and Weights immediately ; 
You see the Trick is easy and conceal'd. [Showing how to slip the Scale. 

Murphey. By Jupiter, it's artfully contriv'd ; 
And was I King, I swear I'd knight th' Inventor. 
Tom, mind the Part that you will have to act. 

Tom. Ah, never fear ; I'll do as well as Jack. 
But then, you know, an honest Servant's Pain deserves Reward. 

Murphey. O ! I'll take care of that. 

[Enter a Number of Indians with Packs of Fur. 

1st Indian. So, what you trade with Indians here to-day ? 

JWDole. Yes, if my Goods will suit, and we agree. 

2d Indian, 'Tis Rum we want ; we're tired, hot, and thirsty. 

3d Indian. You, Mr. Englishman, have you got Rum ? 

M'Dole. Jack, bring a Bottle, pour them each a Gill. 

You know which Cask contains the Rum. The Rum ? 

1st Indian, It's good strong Rum ; I feel it very soon. 

JWDole. Give me a Glass. Here's Honesty in Trade ; 
We English always drink before we deal. 

2d Indian. Good way enough ; it makes one sharp and cunning. 

JWDole. Hand round another Gill. You're very welcome. 

3d Indian, Some say you Englishmen are sometimes Rogues ; 
You make poor Indians drunk, and then you cheat. 

1st Indian. No, English good. The Frenchmen give no Rum. 

2d Indian. I think it's best to trade with Englishmen. 

JWDole. What is your Price for Beaver Skins per Pound ? 

1st Indian. How much you ask per Quart for this strong Rum ? 

JWDole. Five Pounds of Beaver for One Quart of Rum. 

1st Indian. Five Pounds ? Too much. Which is't you call Five Pound ? 

JWDole. This little Weight. I cannot give you more. 

1st Indian. Well, take 'em ; weigh 'em. Don't you cheat us now. 

JWDole. No ; He that cheats an Indian should be hanged. 

[Weighing the Packs. 

There's Thirty Pounds precisely of the Whole ; 
Five times Six is Thirty. Six Quarts of Rum. 
Jack, measure it to them ; you know the Cask. 
This Rum is sold. You draw it off the best. 

[Exeunt Indians to receive their Rum. 
Murphey. By Jove, you've gained more in a single Hour 
Than ever I have done in Half a Year : 



584 



APPENDIX B. 



Curse on my Honesty ! I might have been 
A little King, and lived without Concern, 
Had I but known the proper Arts to thrive. 

M'Dole. Ay, there's the Way, my honest Friend, to live. 

[Clapping his shoulder. 
There's Ninety Weight of Sterling Beaver for you, 
Worth all the Rum and Trinkets in my Store ; 
And, would my Conscience let me do the Thing, 
I might enhance my Price, and lessen theirs, 
And raise my Profits to a higher Pitch. 

Murphey. I can't but thank you for your kind Instructions, 
As from them I expect to reap Advantage. 
But should the Dogs detect me in the Fraud, 
They are malicious, and would have Revenge. 

M'Dole. Can't you avoid them ? Let their Vengeance light 
On others Heads, no matter whose, if you 
Are but Secure, and have the Gain in Hand ; 
For they're indhT'rent where they take Revenge, 
Whether on him that cheated, or his Friend, 
Or on a Stranger whom they never saw, 
Perhaps an honest Peasant, who ne'er dreamt 
Of Fraud or Villainy in all his Life ; 
Such let them murder, if they will, a Score, 
The Guilt is theirs, while we secure the Gain, 
Nor shall we feel the bleeding Victim's Pain. [Exeunt. 



Scene II. — A Desart. 

Enter Orsbourn and Honnyman, Two English Hunters. 

Orsbourn. Long have we toil'd, and rang'd the woods in vain ; 
No Game, nor Track, nor Sign of any Kind 
Is to be seen ; I swear I am discourag'd 
And weary'd out with this long fruitless Hunt. 
No Life on Earth besides is half so hard, 
So full of Disappointments, as a Hunter's : 
Each Morn he wakes he views the destin'd Prey, 
And counts the Profits of th' ensuing Day ; 
Each Ev'ning at his curs'd ill Fortune pines, 
And till next Day his Hope of Gain resigns. 
By Jove, I'll from these Desarts hasten home, 
And swear that never more I'll touch a Gun. 



APPENDIX B. 



Honnyman. These hateful Indians kidnap all the Game. 
Curse their black Heads ! they fright the Deer and Bear, 
And ev'ry Animal that haunts the Wood, 
Or by their Witchcraft conjure them away. 
No Englishman can get a single Shot, 
While they go loaded home with Skins and Furs. 
'Twere to be wish'd not one of them survived, 
Thus to infest the World, and plague Mankind. 
Curs'd Heathen Infidels ! mere savage Beasts ! 
They don't deserve to breathe in Christian Air, 
And should be hunted down like other Brutes. 

Orshourn. I only Avish the Laws permitted us 
To hunt the savage Herd where-e'er they're found ; 
I'd never leave the Trade of Hunting then, 
While one remain'd to tread and range the Wood. 

Honnyman. Curse on the Law, I say, that makes it Death 
To kill an Indian, more than to kill a Snake. 
What if 'tis Peace ? these Dogs deserve no Mercy ; 
They kill'd my Father and my eldest Brother, 
Since which I hate their very Looks and Name. 

Orshourn. And I, since they betray'd and kill'd my Uncle ; 
Tho' these are not the same, 'twould ease my Heart 
To cleave their painted Heads, and spill their Blood. 
I abhor, detest, and hate them all, 
And now cou'd eat an Indian's Heart with Pleasure. 

Honnyman. I'd join you, and soop his savage Brains for Sauce ; 
I lose all Patience when I think of them, 
And, if you will, we'll quickly have amends 
For our long Travel and successless Hunt, 
And the sweet Pleasure of Revenge to boot. 

Orshourn. What will you do ? Present, and pop one down ? 

Honnyman. Yes, faith, the first we meet well fraught with Furs 
Or if there's Two, and we can make sure Work, 
By Jove, we'll ease the Rascals of their Packs, 
And send them empty home to their own Country. 
But then observe, that what we do is secret, 
Or the Hangman will come in for Snacks. 

Orshourn. Trust me for that ; I'll join with all my Heart ; 
Nor with a nicer Aim, or steadier Hand 
Would shoot a Tyger than I would an Indian. 
There is a Couple stalking now this way 
With lusty Packs ; Heav'n favour our Design. 
Are you well charged ? 

Honnyman. I am. Take you the nearest, 
And mind to fire exactly when I do. 

74 



586 



APPENDIX B. 



Orsbourn. A charming Chance ! 
Honnyman. Hush, let them still come nearer. 

[TJiey shoot, and run to rifle the Indians. 
They're down, old Boy, a Brace of noble Bucks ! 

Orsbourn. Well tallow'd, faith, and noble Hides upon 'em. 

{Taking up a Pack. 

We might have hunted all the Season thro' 

For Half this Game, and thought ourselves well paid. 

Honnyman. By Jove, we might, and been at great Expence 
For Lead and Powder ; here's a single Shot. 

Orsbourn. I swear I've got as much as I can carry. 

Honnyman. And faith, I'm not behind ; this Pack is heavy. 
But stop ; we must conceal the tawny Dogs, 
Or their bloodthirsty Countrymen will find them, 
And then we're bit. There'll be the Devil to pay ; 
They'll murder us, and cheat the Hangman too. 

Orsbourn. Right. We'll prevent all Mischief of this Kind. 
Where shall we hide their savage Carcases ? 

Honnyman. There they will lie conceal'd and snug enough. 

[TJiey cover them. 

But stay — perhaps ere long there'll be a War, 
And then their Scalps will sell for ready Cash, 
Two Hundred Crowns at least, and that's worth saving. 

Orsbourn. Well ! that is true ; no sooner said than done — 

[Drawing his Knife. 

I'll strip this Fellow's painted greasy Skull. [Strips off the Scalp. 

Honnyman. Now let them sleep to Night without their Caps, 

[Takes the other Scalp. 

And pleasant Dreams attend their long Repose. 

Orsbourn. Their Guns and Hatchets now are lawful Prize, 
For they'll not need them on their present Journey. 

Honnyman. The Devil hates Arms, and dreads the Smell of Powder ; 
He'll not allow such Instruments about him ; 
They're free from training now, they're in his Clutches. 

Orsbourn. But, Honnyman, d'ye think this is not Murder ? 
I vow I'm shocked a little to see them scalp'd, 
And fear their Ghosts will haunt us in the Dark. 

Honnyman. It's no more Murder than to crack a Louse, 
That is, if you've the Wit to keep it private. 
And as to Haunting, Indians have no Ghosts, 
But as they live like Beasts, like Beasts they die. 
I've killed a Dozen in this selfsame Way, 
And never yet was troubled with their Spirits. 

Orsbourn. Then I'm content ; my Scruples are removed. 
And what I've done, my Conscience justifies. 



APPENDIX B. 



587 



But we must have these Guns and Hatchets alter'd, 
Or they'll detect th' Affair, and hang us both. 

Honnyman. That's quickly done — Let us with Speed return, 
And think no more of being hang'd or haunted ; 
But turn our Fur to Gold, our Gold to Wine, 
Thus gaily spend what we've so slily won, 
And bless the first Inventor of a Gun. [Exeunt 

The remaining scenes of this act exhibit the rudeness and insolence of 
British officers and soldiers in their dealings with the Indians, and the 
corruption of British government agents. Pontiac himself is introduced 
and represented as indignantly complaining of the reception which he and 
his warriors meet with. These scenes are overcharged with blasphemy 
and ribaldry, and it is needless to preserve them here. The rest of the play 
is written in better taste, and contains several passages of force and 
eloquence. 



APPENDIX C. 



DETEOIT AND MICHILLIMACKINAC. 



1. The Siege of Detroit. (Chap. IX.-XV.) 

The authorities consulted respecting the siege of Detroit consist of 
numerous manuscript letters of officers in the fort, including the official 
correspondence of the commanding officer ; of several journals and frag- 
ments of journals ; of extracts from contemporary newspapers ; and of 
traditions and recollections received from Indians or aged Canadians of 
Detroit. 



The Pontiac Manuscript. 

This curious diary was preserved in a Canadian family at Detroit, and 
afterwards deposited with the Historical Society of Michigan. It is con- 
jectured to have been the work of a French priest. The original is written 
in bad French, and several important parts are defaced or torn away. As 
a literary composition, it is quite worthless, being very diffuse and encum- 
bered with dull and trivial details ; yet this very minuteness affords strong 
internal evidence of its authenticity. Its general exactness with respect to 
facts is fully proved by comparing it with contemporary documents. I am 
indebted to General Cass for the copy in my possession, as well as for other 
papers respecting the war in the neighborhood of Detroit. 

The manuscript appears to have been elaborately written out from a 
rough journal kept during the progress of the events which it describes. It 
commences somewhat ambitiously, as follows : — 

" Pondiac, great chief of all the Ottawas, Chippewas, and Pottawattamies, 
and of all the nations of the lakes and rivers of the North, a man proud, 
vindictive, warlike, and easily offended, under pretence of some insult which 
he thought he had received from Maj. Gladwin, Commander of the Fort, 
conceived that, being great chief of all the Northern nations, only himself 



APPENDIX C. 



589 



and those of his nations were entitled to inhabit this portion of the earth, 
where for sixty and odd years the French had domiciliated for the purpose 
of trading, and where the English had governed during three years by right 
of the conquest of Canada. The Chief and all his nation, whose bravery- 
consists in treachery, resolved within himself the entire destruction of the 
English nation, and perhaps the Canadians. In order to succeed in his un- 
dertaking, which he had not mentioned to any of his nation the Ottawas, he 
engaged their aid by a speech, and they, naturally inclined to evil, did not 
hesitate to obey him. But, as they found themselves too weak to undertake 
the enterprise alone, their chief endeavored to draw to his party the Chip- 
pewa nation by means of a council. This nation was governed by a chief 
named Ninevois. This man, who acknowledged Pondiac as his chief, whose 
mind was weak, and whose disposition cruel, listened to his advances, and 
joined him with all his band. These two nations consisted together of 
about four hundred men. This number did not appear to him sufficient. It 
became necessary to bring into their interests the Hurons. This nation, 
divided into two bands, was governed by two different chiefs of dissimilar 
character, and nevertheless both led by their spiritual father, a Jesuit. The 
two chiefs of this last nation were named, one Takee, of a temper similar to 
Pondiac's, and the other Teata, a man of cautious disposition and of perfect 
prudence. This last was not easily won, and having no disposition to do 
evil, he refused to listen to the deputies sent by Pondiac, and sent them back. 
They therefore addressed themselves to the first mentioned of this nation, 
by whom they were listened to, and from whom they received the war-belt, 
with promise to join themselves to Pondiac and Ninevois, the Ottawas and 
Chippewas chiefs. It was settled by means of wampum-belts, (a manner 
of making themselves understood amongst distant savages,) that they should 
hold a council on the 27th of April, when should be decided the day and 
hour of the attack, and the precautions necessary to take in order that their 
perfidy should not be discovered. The manner of counting used by the 
Indians is by the moon ; and it was resolved, in the way I have mentioned, 
that this council should be held on the 15th day of the moon, which cor- 
responded with Wednesday the 27th of the month of April." 

The writer next describes the council at the River Ecorces, and recounts 
at full length the story of the Delay/are Indian who visited the Great 
Spirit. " The Chiefs," he says, " listened to Pondiac as to an oracle, and 
told him they were ready to do any thing he should require." 

He relates with great minuteness how Pontiac, with his chosen warriors, 
came to the fort on the 1st of May, to dance the calumet dance, and observe 
the strength and disposition of the garrison, and describes the council sub- 
sequently held at the Pottawattamie village, in order to adjust the plan of 
attack. 

" The day fixed upon having arrived, all the Ottawas, Pondiac at their 
head, and the bad band of the Hurons, Takee at their head, met at the 
Pottawattamie village, where the premeditated council was to be held. 
Care was taken to send all the women out of the village, that they might not 

XX 



590 



APPENDIX C. 



discover what was decided upon. Pondiac then ordered sentinels to be 
placed around the village, to prevent any interruption to their council. These 
precautions taken, each seated himself in the circle, according to his rank, 
and Pondiac, as great chief of the league, thus addressed them : — 

" It is important, my brothers, that we should exterminate from our land 
this nation, whose only object is our death. You must be all sensible, as well 
as myself, that we can no longer supply our wants in the way we were 
accustomed to do with our Fathers the French. They sell us their goods 
at double the price that the French made us pay, and yet their merchandise 
is good for nothing ; for no sooner have we bought a blanket or other thing 
to cover lis than it is necessary to procure others against the time of depart- 
ing for our wintering ground. Neither will they let us have them on credit, 
as our brothers the French used to do. When I visit the English chief, and 
inform him of the death of any of our comrades, instead of lamenting, as our 
brothers the French used to do, they make game of us. If I ask him for 
any thing for our sick, he refuses, and tells us he does not want us, from 
which it is apparent he seeks our death. We must therefore, in return, 
destroy them without delay ; there is nothing to prevent us : there are 
but few of them, and we shall easily overcome them, — why should we not 
attack them ? Are we not men ? Have I not shown you the belts I 
received from our Great Father the King of France ? He tells us to 
strike, — why should we not listen to his words ? What do you fear ? The 
time has arrived. Do you fear that our brothers the French, who are now 
among us, will hinder us ? They are not acquainted with our designs, and 
if they did know them, could they prevent them ? You know, as well as 
myself, that when the English came upon our lands, to drive from them our 
father Bellestre, they took from the French all the guns that they have, so 
that they have now no guns to defend themselves with. Therefore now is 
the time : let us strike. Should there be any French to take their part, let 
us strike them as we do the English. Remember what the Giver of Life 
desired our brother the Delaware to do : this regards us as much as it does 
them. I have sent belts and speeches to our friends the Chippeways of 
Saginaw, and our brothers the Ottawas of Michillimacinac, and to those of 
the Riviere a la Tranche, (Thames River,) inviting them to join us, and they 
will not delay. In the mean time, let us strike. There is no longer any 
time to lose, and when the English shall be defeated, we will stop the way, 
so that no more shall return upon our lands. 

" This discourse, which Pondiac delivered in a tone of much energy, had 
upon the whole council all the effect which he could have expected, and 
they all, with common accord, swore the entire destruction of the English 
nation. 

" At the breaking up of the council, it was decided that Pondiac, with sixty 
chosen men, should go to the Fort to ask for a grand council from the Eng- 
lish commander, and that they should have arms concealed under their 
blankets. That the remainder of the village should follow them armed with 
tomahawks, daggers, and knives, concealed under their blankets, and should 



APPENDIX C. 



591 



enter the Fort, and walk about in such a manner as not to excite suspicion, 
whilst the others held council with the Commander. The Ottawa women 
were also to be furnished with short guns and other offensive weapons 
concealed under their blankets. They were to go into the back streets hi 
the Fort. They were then to wait for the signal agreed upon, which was 
the cry of death, which the Grand Chief, was to give, on which they should 
altogether strike upon the English, taking care not to hurt any of the French 
inhabiting the Fort." 

The author of the diary, unlike other contemporary writers, states that 
the plot was disclosed to Gladwyn by a man of the Ottawa tribe, and not 
by an Ojibwa girl. He says, however, that on the day after the failure of 
the design, Pontiac sent to the Pottawattamie village in order to seize an 
Ojibwa girl whom he suspected of having betrayed him. 

" Pondiac ordered four Indians to take her and bring her before him ; 
these men, naturally inclined to disorder, were not long in obeying their 
chief; they crossed the river immediately in front of their village, and passed 
into the Fort naked, having nothing but their breech-clouts on and their 
knives in their hands, and crying all the way that their plan had been de- 
feated, which induced the French people of the Fort, who knew nothing of 
the designs of the Indians, to suspect that some bad design was going 
forward, either against themselves or the English. They arrived at the 
Pottawattamie village, and in fact found the woman, who was far from 
thmking of them ; nevertheless they seized her, and obliged her to march 
before them, uttering cries of joy in the manner they do when they hold a 
victim in their clutches on whom they are going to exercise their cruelty : 
they made her enter the Fort, and took her before the Commandant, as if 
to confront her with him, and asked him if it was not from her he had learnt 
their design ; but they were no better satisfied than if they had kept them- 
selves quiet. They obtained from that Officer bread and beer for them- 
selves, and for her. They then led her to their chief in the village." 

The diary leaves us in the dark as to the treatment which the girl 
received ; but there is a tradition among the Canadians that Pontiac, with 
his own hand, gave her a severe beating with a species of racket, such as the 
Indians use in their ball-play. An old Indian told Henry Conner, formerly 
United States interpreter at Detroit, that she survived her punishment, and 
lived for many years ; but at length, contracting intemperate habits, she fell, 
when intoxicated, into a kettle of boiling maple sap, and was so severely 
scalded that she died in consequence. 

The outbreak of hostilities, the attack on the fort, and the detention of 
Campbell and McDougal are related at great length, and with all the minute- 
ness of an eye-witness. The substance of the narrative is incorporated in 
the body of the work. The diary is very long, detailing the incidents of 
every passing day, from the 7th of May to the 31st of July. Here it breaks 
off abruptly in the middle of a sentence, the remaining part having been 
lost or torn away. The following extracts, taken at random, will serve to 
indicate the general style and character of the journal : — 



592 



APPENDIX C. 



" Saturday, June 4th. About 4 P. M. cries of death were heard from the 
Indians. The cause was not known, but it was supposed they had obtained 
some prize on the Lake. 

" Sunday, June 5th. The Indians fired a few shots upon the Fort to-day. 
About 2 P. M. cries of death were again heard on the opposite side of the 
River. A number of Indians were descried, part on foot and part mounted. 
Others were taking up two trading boats, which they had taken on the lake. 
The vessel fired several shots at them, hoping they would abandon their 
prey, but they reached Pondiac's camp uninjured." . . . 

" About 7 P. M. news came that a number of Indians had gone down as 
far as Turkey Island, opposite the small vessel which was anchored there, 
but that, on seeing them, she had dropped down into the open Lake, to wait 
for a fair wind to come up the river. 

" Monday, June 20th. The Indians fired some shots upon the fort. About 
4 P. M. news was brought that Presquisle and Beef River Forts, which had 
been established by the French, and were now occupied by the English, had 
been destroyed by the Indians." . . . . 

" Wednesday, June 22d. The Indians, whose whole attention was directed 
to the vessel, did not trouble the Fort. In the course of the day, the news 
of the taking of Presquisle was confirmed, as a great number of the Indians 
were seen coming along the shore with prisoners. The Commandant was 
among the number, and with him one woman : both were presented to the 
Hurons. In the afternoon, the Commandant received news of the lading of 
the vessel, and the number of men on board. The Indians again visited 
the French for provisions. 

" Thursday, June 23d. Very early m the morning, a great number of 
Indians were seen passing behind the Fort: they joined those below, and 
all repaired to Turkey Island. The river at this place is very narrow, 
The Indians commenced making intrenchments of trees, &c, on the beach, 
where the vessel was to pass, whose arrival they awaited. About 10 
of the preceding night, the wind coming aft, the vessel weighed anchor, 
and came up the river. When opposite the Island the wind fell, and they 
were obliged to throw the anchor ; as they knew they could not reach the 
Fort without being attacked by the Indians, they kept a strict watch. In 
order to deceive the Indians, the captain had hid in the hold sixty of his 
men, suspecting that the Indians, seeing only about a dozen men on deck, 
would try to take the vessel, which occurred as he expected. About 9 at 
night they got in their canoes, and made for the vessel, intending to board 
her. They were seen far off by one of the sentinels. The captain imme- 
diately ordered up all his men in the greatest silence, and placed them 
along the sides of the vessel, with their guns in their hands, loaded, with 
orders to wait the signal for firing, which was the rap of a hammer on the 
mast. The Indians were allowed to approach within less than gunshot, 
when the signal was given, and a discharge of cannon and small arms made 
upon them. They retreated to their intrenchment with the loss of fourteen 
killed and fourteen wounded ; from which they fired during the night, and 



APPENDIX C. 



593 



wounded two men. In the morning, the vessel dropped down to the Lake 
for a more favourable wind. 

" Friday, June 24th. The Indians were occupied with the vessel. Two 
Indians back of the Fort were pursued by twenty men, and escaped. 

" Saturday, June 25th. Nothing occurred this day. 

" Sunday, June 26th. Nothing of consequence. 

" Monday, June 27th. Mr. Gamelin, who was in the practice of visiting 
Messrs. Campbell and McDougall, brought a letter to the Commandant 
from Mr. Campbell, dictated by Pondiac, in which he requested the Com- 
mandant to surrender the Fort, as in a few days he expected Kee-no-cha- 
meck, great chief of the Chippewas, with eight hundred men of his nation ; 
that he (Pondiac) would not then be able to command them, and as soon 
as they arrived, they would scalp all the English in the Fort. The 
Commandant only answered that he cared as little for him as he did for 
them." . . . 

" This - evening, the Commandant was informed that the Ottawas and 
Chippewas had undertaken another raft, which might be more worthy cf 
attention than the former ones : it was reported to be of pine boards, and 
intended to be long enough to go across the river. By setting fire to every 
part of it, it could not help, by its length, coming in contact with the vessel, 
which by this means they expected would certainly take fire. Some firing 
took place between the vessel and Indians, but without effect. 

" Tuesday, July 19th. The Indians attempted to fire on the Fort, but 
being discovered, they were soon made to retreat by a few shot. 

" Wednesday, July 20th. Confirmation came to the Fort of the report of 
the 18th, and that the Indians had been four days at work at their raft, and 
that it would take eight more to finish it. The Commandant ordered that 
two boats should be lined or clapboarded with oak plank, two inches thick, 
and the same defence to be raised above the gunnels of the boats of two 
feet high. A swivel was put on each of them, and placed in such a way 
that they could be pointed in three different directions. 

" Thursday, July 21st. The Indians were too busily occupied to pay any 
attention to the Fort ; so earnest were they in the work of the raft that they 
hardly allowed themselves time to eat. The Commandant farther availed 
himself of the time allowed him before the premeditated attack to put every 
thing in proper order to repulse it. He ordered that two strong graplins 
should be provided for each of the barges, a strong iron chain of fifteen 
feet was to be attached to the boat, and .conducting a strong cable under 
water, fastened to the graplins, and the boats were intended to be so dis- 
posed as to cover the vessel by mooring them by the help of the above 
preparations, above her. The inhabitants of the S. W. ridge, or hill, again 
got a false alarm. It was said the Indians intended attacking them during 
the night : they kept on their guard till morning. 

" Friday, July 22d. An Abenakee Indian arrived this day, saying that he 
came direct from Montreal, and gave out that a large fleet of French was cn 
its way to Canada, full of troops, to dispossess the English of the country. 

75 xx* 



594 



APPENDIX C. 



However fallacious such a story might appear, it had the effect of rousing 
Pondiac from his inaction, and the Indians set about their raft with more 
energy than ever. They had left off working at it since yesterday." ... 

It is needless to continue these extracts farther. Those already given 
will convey a sufficient idea of the character of the diary. 



KEMINISCENCES OF AGED CANADIANS. 

About the year 1824, General Cass, with the design of writing a narrative 
of the siege of Detroit by Pontiac, caused inquiry to be made among the 
aged Canadian inhabitants, many of whom could distinctly remember the 
events of 1763. The accounts received from them were committed to 
paper, and were placed by General Cass, with great liberality, in the writer's 
hands. They afford an interesting mass of evidence, as worthy of confi- 
dence as evidence of the kind can be. With but one exception, — the 
account of Maxwell, — they do not clash with the testimony of contemporary 
documents. Much caution has, however, been observed in their use ; and 
no essential statement has been made on their unsupported authority. The 
most prominent of these accounts are those of Peltier, St. Aubin, Gouin, 
Meloche, Parent, and Maxwell. 

Peltier's Account. 

M. Peltier was seventeen years old at the time of Pontiac's war. His 
narrative, though one of the longest of the collection, is imperfect, since, 
during a great part of the siege, he was absent from Detroit in search of 
runaway horses, belonging to his father. His recollection of the earlier 
part of the affair is, however, clear and minute. He relates, with apparent 
credulity, the story of the hand of the murdered Fisher protruding from the 
earth, as if in supplication for the neglected rites of burial. He remembers 
that, soon after the failure of Pontiac's attempt to surprise the garrison, he 
punished by a severe flogging a woman named Catharine, accused of having 
betrayed the plot. He was at Detroit during the several attacks on the 
armed vessels, and the attempts to set them on fire by means of blazing rafts. 

St. Aubin's Account. 

St. Aubin was fifteen years old at the time of the siege. It was his 
mother who crossed over to Pontiac's village shortly before the attempt on 
the garrison, and discovered the Indians in the act of sawing off the muzzles 
of their guns, as related in the narrative. He remembers Pontiac at his 



APPENDIX C. 



595 



head-quarters, at the house of Meloche, where his commissaries served out 
provision to the Indians. He himself was among those who conveyed 
cattle across the river to the English at a time when they were threatened 
with starvation. One of his most vivid recollections is that of seeing the 
head of Captain Dalzell stuck on the picket of a garden fence, on the day 
after the battle of Bloody Bridge. His narrative is one of the most copious 
and authentic of the series. 

Gouin's Account. 

M. Gouin was but eleven years old at the time of the war. His father 
was a prominent trader, and had great influence over the Indians. On sev- 
eral occasions, he acted as mediator between them and the English, and 
when Major Campbell was bent on visiting the camp of Pontiac, the elder 
Gouin strenuously endeavored to prevent the attempt. Pontiac often came 
to him for advice. His son bears emphatic testimony to the extraordinary 
control which the chief exercised over his followers, and to the address 
which he displayed in. the management of his commissary department. 
This account contains many particulars not elsewhere mentioned, though 
bearing all the appearance of truth. It appears to have been composed 
partly from the recollections of the younger Gouin, and partly from informa- 
tion derived from his father. 

Meloche's Account. 

Mrs. Meloche lived, when a child, on the borders of the Detroit, between 
the river and the camp of Pontiac. On one occasion, when the English 
were cannonading the camp from their armed schooner in the river, a shot 
struck her father's house, throwing down a part of the walls. After the 
death of Major Campbell, she picked up a pocket-book belonging to him, 
which the Indians had left on the ground. It was full of papers, and she 
carried it to the English in the fort. 

Parent's Account. 

M. Parent was twenty-two years old when the war broke out. His recol- 
lections of the siege are, however, less exact than those of some of the 
former witnesses, though his narrative "preserves several interesting in- 
cidents. 

Maxwell's Account. 

Maxwell was an English provincial, and pretended to have been a soldier 
under Gladwyn. His story belies the statement. It has all the air of a 
narrative made up from hearsay, and largely embellished from imagination. 
It has been made use of only in a few instances, where it is amply 



596 



APPENDIX C. 



supported by less questionable evidence. This account seems to have 
been committed to paper by Maxwell himself, as the style is very rude 
and illiterate. 

The remaining manuscripts consulted with reference to the siege of 
Detroit have been obtained from the State Paper Office of London, and 
from a few private autograph collections. Some additional information has 
been derived from the columns of the New York Mercury and the Pennsyl- 
vania Gazette for 1763, where various letters written by officers at Detroit 
are published. 



2. The Massacre of Michillimackinac. (Chap. XVII.) 

The following letter may be regarded with interest, as having been 
written by the commander of the unfortunate garrison a few days after the 
massacre. A copy of the original was procured from the State Paper 
Office of London. 

Michillimackinac, 12 June, 1763. 

Sir: 

Notwithstanding what I wrote you in my last, that all the savages were 
arrived, and that every thing seemed in perfect tranquility, yet, on the 4th 
instant, the Chippeways, who live in a plain near this fort, assembled to play 
ball, as they had done almost every day since their arrival. They played 
from morning till noon ; then throwing their ball close to the gate, and ob- 
serving Lieut. Lesley and me a few paces out of it, they came behind us, 
seized and carried us into the woods. 

In the mean time the rest rushed into the Fort, where they found their 
squaws, whom they had previously planted there, with their hatchets hid 
under their blankets, which they took, and in an instant killed Lieut. Jamet 
and fifteen rank and file, and a trader named Tracy. They wounded two, 
and took the rest of the Garrison prisoners, five [seven, Henry] of whom 
they have since killed. 

They made prisoners all the English Traders, and robbed them of every 
thing they had ; but they offered no violence to the persons or property of 
any of the Frenchmen. 

When that massacre was over, Messrs. Langlade and Farli, the Inter- 
preter, came down to the place where Lieut. Lesley and me were prisoners, 
and on their giving themselves as security to return us when demanded, 
they obtained leave for us to go to the Fort, under a guard of savages, which 
gave time, by the assistance of the gentlemen above mentioned, to send for 
the Outaways, who came down on the first notice, and were very much dis- 
pleased at what the Chippeways had done. 

Since the arrival of the Outaways they have done every thing in their 
power to serve us, and with what prisoners the Chippeways had given them, 



APPENDIX C. 



597 



and what they have bought, I have now with me Lieut. Lesley and eleven 
privates, and the other four of the Garrison, who are yet living, remain in 
the hands of the Chippeways. 

The Chippeways, who are superior in number to the Cutaways, have de- 
clared in Council to them that if they do not remove us out of the Fort, 
they will cut off all communication to this Post, by which means all the 
Convoys of Merchants from Montreal, La Baye, St. Joseph, and the upper 
posts, would perish. But if the news of your posts being attacked (which 
they say was the reason why they took up the hatchet) be false, and you 
can send up a strong reinforcement, with provisions, &c, accompanied by 
some of your savages, I believe the post might.be reestablished again. 

Since this affair happened, two canoes arrived from Montreal, which put 
in my power to make a present to the Ottaway nation, who very well deserve 
any thing that can be done for them. 

I have been very much obliged to Messrs. Langlade and Farli, the Inter- 
preter, as likewise to the Jesuit, for the many good offices they have done us 
on this occasion. The Priest seems inclinable to go down to your post 'for 
a day or two, which I am very glad of, as he is a very good man, and had a 
great deal to say with the savages, hereabout, who will believe every thing 
he tells them on his return, which I hope will be soon. The Cutaways say 
they will take Lieut. Lesley, me, and the Eleven men which I mentioned 
before were in their hands, up to their village, and there keep us, till they 
hear what is doing at your Post. They have sent this canot for that purpose. 

I refer you to the Priest for the particulars of this melancholy affair, and 
am, Dear Sir, 

Yours very sincerely, 

[Signed] Geo. Etherington. 

To Major Gladwyn. 

P. S. The Indians that are to carry the Priest to Detroit will not under- 
take to land him at the Fort, but at some of the Indian villages near it ; so 
you must not take it amiss that he does not pay you the first visit. And 
once more I beg that nothing may stop your sending of him back, the next 
day after his arrival, if possible, as we shall be at a great loss for the want 
of him, and I make no doubt that you will do all in your power to make 
peace, as you see the situation we are in, and send up provision as soon as 
possible, and Ammunition, as what we had was pillaged by the savages. 

Adieu. 

Geo. Etheringtox. 



APPENDIX B. 



THE WAR ON THE BORDERS. 



The Battle of Bushy Run. (Chap. XX.) 

The despatches written by Colonel Bouquet, immediately after the 
two battles near Bushy Run, contain so full and clear an account of 
those engagements, that the collateral authorities consulted have served 
rather to decorate and enliven the narrative than to add to it any important 
facts. The first of these letters was written by Bouquet under the appre- 
hension that he should not survive the expected conflict of the next day. 
Both were forwarded to the commander-in-chief by the same express, within 
a few days after the victory. The letters as here given were copied from 
the originals in the London offices. 
V 

Camp at Edge Hill, 26 Miles from ) 
Fort Pitt, 5th August, 1763. > 

Sir: 

The Second Instant the Troops and Convoy Arrived at Ligonier, whence 
I could obtain no Intelligence of the Enemy ; The Expresses Sent since 
the beginning of July, having been Either killed, or Obliged to Return, 
all the Passes being Occupied by the Enemy : In this uncertainty I Deter- 
mined to Leave all the Waggons with the Powder, and a Quantity of 
Stores and Provisions, at Ligonier ; And on the 4th proceeded with the 
Troops, and about 350 Horses Loaded with Flour. 

I Intended to have Halted to Day at Bushy Run, (a Mile beyond this 
Camp,) and after having Refreshed the Men and Horses, to have Marched 
in the Night over Turtle Creek, a very Dangerous Defile of Several Miles, 
Commanded by High and Craggy Hills : But at one o'clock this Afternoon, 
after a march of 17 Miles, the Savages suddenly Attacked our Advanced 
Guard, which was immediately Supported by the two Light Infantry Com- 
panies of the 42d Regiment, Who Drove the Enemy from their Ambuscade, 
and pursued them a good Way. The Savages Returned to the Attack, and 



APPENDIX D. 



599 



the Fire being Obstinate on our Front, and Extending along our Flanks, 
We made a General Charge, with the whole Line, to Dislodge the Savages 
from the Heights, in which attempt We succeeded without Obtaining by it 
any Decisive Advantage ; for as soon as they were driven from One Post, 
they Appeared on Another, 'till, by continual Reinforcements, they were at 
last able to Surround Us, and attacked the Convoy Left in our Rear ; This 
Obliged us to March Back to protect it ; The Action then became General, 
and though we were attacked on Every Side, and the Savages Exerted 
themselves with Uncommon Resolution, they were constantly Repulsed 
with Loss. — We also Suffered Considerably: Capt. Lieut. Graham, and 
Lieut. James Mcintosh of the 42d, are Killed, and Capt. Graham Wounded. 

Of the Royal Amer'n Regt, Lieut. Dow, who acted as A. D. Q,. M. G. is 
shot through the Body. 

Of the 77th, Lieut. Donald Campbell, and Mr. Peebles, a Volunteer, are 
Wounded. 

Our Loss in Men, Including Rangers, and Drivers, Exceeds Sixty, Killed 
or Wounded. 

The Action has Lasted from One O'Clock 'till Night, And We Expect to 
Begin again at Day Break. Whatever Our Fate may be, I thought it neces- 
sary to Give Your Excellency this Early Information, that You may, at all 
Events, take such Measures as You will think proper with the Provinces, 
for their own Safety, and the Effectual Relief of Fort Pitt, as in Case of 
Another Engagement I Fear Insurmountable Difficulties in protecting and 
Transporting our Provisions, being already so much Weakened by the 
Losses of this Day, in Men and Horses ; besides the Additional Necessity 
of Carrying the Wounded, Whose Situation is truly Deplorable. 

I Cannot Sufficiently Acknowledge the Constant Assistance I have Re- 
ceived from Major Campbell, during this long Action; Nor Express my 
Admiration of the Cool and Steady Behavior of the Troops, Who Did not 
Fire a Shot, without Orders, and Drove the Enemy from their Posts with 
Fixed Bayonets. — The Conduct of the Officers is much above my Praises. 
I Have the 
Honor to be, with great Respect, 

Sir, 

&ca. 

Henry Bouquet. 

His Excellency Sir Jeffrey Amherst. 

Camp at Bushy Run, 6th August, 1763. 

Sir: 

I Had the Honor to Inform Your Excellency in my letter of Yesterday, 
of our first Engagement with the Savages. 

We Took Post last Night on the Hill, where Our Convoy Halted, when 
the Front was Attacked, (a commodious piece of Ground, and Just Spacious 
Enough for our Purpose.) There We Encircled the Whole, and Covered 
our Wounded with the Flour Bags. 



600 



APPENDIX D. 



In the Morning the Savages Surrounded our Camp, at the Distance of 
about 500 Yards, and by Shouting and Yelping, quite Round that Exten- 
sive Circumference, thought to have Terrified Us, with their Numbers : 
They Attacked Us Early, and, under Favour of an Incessant Fire, made 
Several Bold Efforts to Penetrate our Camp ; And tho' they Failed in the 
Attempt, our Situation was not the Less Perplexing, having Experienced 
that Brisk Attacks had Little Effect upon an Enemy, who always gave Way 
when Pressed, & Appeared again Immediately ; Our Troops were besides 
Extremely Fatigued with the Long March, and as long Action of the Pre- 
ceding Day, and Distressed to the Last Degree, by a Total Want of Water, 
much more Intolerable than the Enemy's Fire. 

Tied to our Convoy We could not Lose Sight of it, without Exposing it, 
and our Wounded, to Fall a prey to the Savages, who Pressed upon Us on 
Every Side ; and to Move it was Impracticable, having lost many horses, 
and most of the Drivers, Stupified by Fear, hid themselves in the Bushes, 
or were Incapable of Hearing or Obeying Orders. 

The Savages growing Every Moment more Audacious, it was thought 
proper still to increase their Confidence ; by that means, if possible, to En- 
tice them to Come Close upon Us, or to Stand their Ground when Attacked. 
With this View two Companies of Light Infantry were Ordered within the 
Circle, and the Troops on their Right and Left opened their Files, and 
Filled up the Space that it might seem they were intended to Cover the 
Retreat ; The Third Light Infantry Company, and the Grenadiers of the 
42d, were Ordered to Support the two First Companys. This Manoeuvre 
Succeeded to Our Wish, for the Few Troops who Took possession of the 
Ground lately Occupied by the two Light Infantry Companys being 
Brought in Nearer to the Centre of the Circle, the Barbarians, mistaking 
these Motions for a Retreat, Hurried Headlong on, and Advancing upon 
Us, with the most Daring Intrepidity, Galled us Excessively with their 
Heavy Fire ; But at the very moment, that Certain of Success, they thought 
themselves Masters of the Camp, Major Campbell, at the Head of the two 
First Companys, Sallied out from a part of the Hill they Could not Observe, 
and Fell upon their Right Flank ; They Resolutely Returned the Fire, but 
could not Stand the Irresistible Shock of our Men, Who, Rushing in among 
them, Killed many of them, and Put the Rest to Flight. The Orders sent 
to the Other Two Companys were Delivered so timely by Captain Basset, 
and Executed with such Celerity and Spirit, that the Routed Savages, who 
happened to Run that Moment before their Front, Received their Full Fire, 
when Uncovered by the Trees : The Four Companys Did not give them 
time to Load a Second time, nor Even to Look behind them, but Pursued 
them 'till they were Totally Dispersed. The Left of the Savages, which 
had not been Attacked, were kept in Awe by the Remains of our Troops, 
Posted on the Brow of the Hill, for that Purpose ; Nor Durst they Attempt 
to Support, or Assist their Right, but being Witness to their Defeat, fol- 
lowed their Example and Fled. Our Brave Men Disdained so much to 



APPENDIX D. 



601 



Touch the Dead Body of a Vanquished Enemy, that Scarce a Scalp was 
taken, Except by the Rangers, and Pack Horse Drivers. 

The Woods being now Cleared and the Pursuit over, the Four Company s 
took possession of a Hill in our Front ; and as soon as Litters could be 
made for the Wounded, and the Flour and Every thing Destroyed, which, 
for want of Horses, could not be Carried, We Marched without Moles- 
tation to this Camp. After the Severe Correction We had given the 
Savages a few hours before, it was Natural to Suppose We should Enjoy 
some Rest ; but We had hardly Fixed our Camp, when they Fired upon 
Us again : This was very Provoking ! However, the Light Infantry Dis- 
persed them, before they could Receive Orders for that purpose. — I Hope 
We shall be no more Disturbed, for, if We have another Action, We shall 
hardly be able to Cany our Wounded. 

The Behavior of the Troops, on this Occasion, Speaks for itself so 
Strongly, that for me to Attempt their Eulogium, would but Detract from 
their merit. 

I Have the lienor to be, most Respectfully, 

Sir, 

&ca. 

Henry Bouquet. 

P. S. I Have the Honor to Enclose the Return of the Killed, Wounded, 
and Missing in the two Engagements. 

H. B. 



His Excellency Sir Jeffrey Amherst. 

76 



YY 



APPENDIX E. 



THE PAXTON RIOTS. 



1. Evidence against the Indians of Conestoga. (p. 412.) 

Abraham Newcomer, a Mennonist, by trade a Gunsmith, upon his affirma- 
tion, declared that several times, within these few years, Bill Soc and 
Indian John, two of the Conestogue Indians, threatened to scalp him for 
refusing to mend their tomahawks, and swore they would as soon scalp 
him as they would a dog. A few days before Bill Soc was killed, he 
brought a tomahawk to be steeled. Bill said, " If you will not, I'll have it 
mended to your sorrow," from which expression I apprehended danger. 

Mrs. Thompson, of the borough of Lancaster, personally appeared be- 
fore the Chief Burgess, and upon her solemn oath, on the Holy Evangelists, 
said that in the summer of 1761, Bill Soc came to her apartment, and threat- 
ened her life, saying, " I kill you, all Lancaster can't catch me," which rilled 
me with terror ; and this lady further said, Bill Soc added, " Lancaster is 
mine, and I will have it yet." 

Colonel John Hambright, gentleman, an eminent Brewer of the Borough 
of Lancaster, personally appeared before Robert Thompson, Esq., a justice 
for the county of Lancaster, and made oath on the Holy Evangelists, that, 
in August, 1757, he, an officer, was sent for provision from Fort Augusta to 
Fort Hunter, that on his way he rested at M'Kee's old place ; a Sentinel was 
stationed behind a tree, to prevent surprise. The Sentry gave notice In- 
dians were near ; the deponent crawled up the bank and discovered two 
Indians ; one was Bill Soc, lately killed at Lancaster. He called Bill Soc 
to come to him, but the Indians ran off. When the deponent came to Fort 
Hunter, he learnt that an old man had been killed the day before ; Bill Soc 
and his companion were believed to be the perpetrators of the murder. He, 
the deponent, had frequently seen Bill Soc and some of the Conestogue 



APPENDIX E. 



603 



Indians at Fort Augusta, trading with the Indians, but, after the murder of 
the old man, Bill Soc did not appear at that Garrison. 

John Hambright. 
Sworn and Subscribed the 28th of Feb., 1764, before me, 

Robert Thompson, Justice. 

Charles Cunningham, of the county of Lancaster, personally appeared 
before me, Thomas Foster, Esq., one of the Magistrates for said county, and 
being qualified according to law, doth depose and say, that he, the deponent, 
heard Joshua James, an Indian, say, that he never killed a white man in his 
life, but six dutchmen that he killed in the Minisinks. 

Charles Cunningham. 

Sworn to, and Subscribed before Thomas Foster, Justice. 

Alexander Stephen, of the county of Lancaster, personally appeared 
before Thomas Foster, Esq., one of the Magistrates, and being duly 
qualified according to law, doth say, that Connayak Sally, an Indian 
woman, told him that the Conestogue Indians had killed Jegrea, an Indian, 
because he would not join the Conestogue Indians in destroying the Eng- 
lish. James Cotter told the deponent that he was one of the three that 
killed old William Hamilton, on Sherman's Creek, and also another man, 
with seven of his family. James Cotter demanded of the deponent a canoe, 
which the murderers had left, as Cotter told him when the murder was 
committed. 

Alexander Stephen. 

Thomas Foster, Justice. 

Note. — Jegrea was a Warrior Chief, friendly to the Whites, and he 
threatened the Conestogue Indians with his vengeance, if they harmed the 
English. Cotter was one of the Indians, killed in Lancaster county, in 1763. 

Anne Mary Le Roy, of Lancaster, appeared before the Chief Burgess, 
and being sworn on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, did depose and 
say, that in the year 1755, when her Father, John Jacob Le Roy, and many 
others, were murdered by the Indians, at Mahoney, she, her brother, and 
some others were made prisoners, and taken to Kittanning ; that stranger 
Indians visited them ; the French told them they were Conestogue Indians, 
and that Isaac was the only Indian true to their interest ; and that the Cones- 
togue Indians, with the exception of Isaac, were ready to lift the hatchet 
when ordered by the French. She asked Bill Soc's mother whether she had 
ever been at Kittanning ? she said " no, but her son, Bill Soc, had been 
there often ; that he was good for nothing." 

Mary Le Roy. 



2. Proceedings of the Rioters. (Chap. XXIV. XXV.) 

Deposition of Felix Donolly, keeper of Lancaster Jail. (p. 418.) 

This deposition is imperfect, a part of the manuscript having been 



604 



APPENDIX E. 



defaced or torn away. The original, in the handwriting of Edward Ship- 
pen, the chief magistrate of Lancaster, was a few years since in the posses- 
sion of Redmond Conyngham, Esq. 

The breaking open the door alarmed me ; armed men broke in ; they 
demanded the strange Indian to be given up ; they ran by me ; the Indians 
guessed their intention ; they seized billets of wood from the pile ; but the 
three most active were shot ; others came to their assistance ; I was stupi- 
fied ; before I could shake off my surprise, the Indians were killed and 
their murderers away. 

Q. You say, " Indians armed themselves with wood ; " did those Indians 
attack the rioters ? 

A. They did. If they had not been shot, they would have killed the 
men who entered, for they were the strongest. 

Q. Could the murder have been prevented by you ? 

A. No : I nor no person here could have prevented it. 

Q. What number were the rioters ? 

A. I should say fifty. 

Q. Did you know any of them ? 

A. No ; they were strangers. 

Q. Do you now know who was in command ? 

A. I have been told, Lazarus Stewart of Donegal. 

Q. If the Indians had not attempted resistance, would the men have 
fled ? (fired ?) 

A. I couldn't tell ; I do not know. 

Q. Do you think or believe that the rioters came with the intent to 
murder ? 

A. I heard them say, when they broke in, they wanted a strange 
Indian. 

Q. Was their object to murder him ? 

A. From what I have heard since, I think they meant to carry him off ; 
that is my belief. 

Q. What was then purpose ? 
A. I do not know. 

Q. Were the Indians killed all friends of this province ? 
A. I have been told they were not. I cannot tell of myself ; I do not 
know. 

Donolly was suspected of a secret inclination in favor of the rioters. In 
private conversation he endeavored to place their conduct in as favorable a 
light as possible, and indeed such an intention is apparent in the above 
deposition. 



Letter from Edward Shippen to Governor Hamilton, (p. 420.) 

Lancaster, , 1764. 

Honoured Sir : 

I furnish you with a full detail of all the particulars that could be gath- 
ered of the unhappy transactions of the fourteenth and twenty-seventh of 



APPE2TOIX E. 



605 



December last, as painful for you to read as me to write . The Depositions 
can only state the fact that the Indians were killed. Be assured the Borough 
Authorities, when they placed the Indians in the Workhouse, thought it a 
place of security. I am sorry the Indians were not removed to Philadelphia, 
as recommended by us. It is too late to remedy. It is much to be regretted 
that there are evil-minded persons among us, who are trying to corrupt the 
minds of the people by idle tales and horrible butcheries — are injuring the 
character of many of our most respectable people. That printers should 
have lent their aid astonishes me when they are employed by the Assembly 
to print their laws. I can see no good in meeting their falsehoods by coun- 
ter statements. 

The Rev. Mr. Elder and Mr. Harris are determined to rely upon the 
reputation they have so well established. 

For myself, I can only say that, possessing your confidence, and that of 
the Proprietaries, with a quiet conscience, I regard not the malignant 
pens of secret assailants — men who had not the courage to affix their 
names. Is it not strange that a too ready belief was at first given to the 
slanderous epistles ? Resting on the favor I have enjoyed of the Govern- 
ment, on the confidence reposed in me, by you and the Proprietaries ; by 
the esteem of my fellow-men in Lancaster, I silently remain passive. 

Yours affectionately, 

Edward Shipped. 

Extract from a letter of the Rev. Mr. Elder to Governor Perm, Decem- 
ber 27, 1763. (p. 417, etc.) 

The storm which had been so long gathering, has at length exploded- 
Had Government removed the Indians from Conestoga, which had frequently 
been urged, without success, this painful catastrophe might have been 
avoided. What could I do with men heated to madness. All that I could 
do, was done ; I expostulated ; but life and reason were set at defiance. 
And yet the men, in private life, are virtuous and respectable ; not cruel, 
but mild and merciful. 

The time will arrive when each palliating circumstance will be calmly 
weighed. This deed, magnified into the blackest of crimes, shall be con- 
sidered one of those youthful ebullitions of wrath caused by momentary 
excitement, to which human infirmity is subjected. 

Extract from " The Paxtoniade," a poem in imitation of Hudibras, pub- 
lished at Philadelphia, 1764, by a partisan of the Quaker faction. 

O'Hara mounted on his Steed, 
(Descendant of that self-same Ass, 
That bore his Grandsire Hudibras,) 
And from that same exalted Station, 
Pronounced an hortory Oration : 

YY* 



606 



APPENDIX E. 



For he was cunning as a Fox, 

Had read o'er Calvin and Dan Nox ; • 

A man of most profound Discerning, 

Well versed in P n Learning. 

So after hemming thrice to clear 

His Throat, and banish thoughts of fear, 

And of the mob obtaining Silence, 

He thus went on — " Dear Sirs, a while since 

Ye know as how the Indian Rabble, 

With practices unwarrantable, 

Did come upon our quiet Borders, 

And there commit most desperate murders ; 

Did tomahawk, butcher, wound and cripple, 

With cruel Rage, the Lord's own People ; 

Did war most implacable wage 

With God's own chosen heritage ; 

Did from our Brethren take their lives, 

And kill our Children, kine and wives. 

Now, Sirs, I ween it is but right, 

That we upon these Canaanites, 

Without delay, should Vengeance take, 

Both for our own, and the K — k's sake ; 

Should totally destroy the heathen, 

And never till we've killed 'em leave 'em ; — ■ 

Destroy them quite frae out the Land ; 

And for it we have God's Command. 

We should do him a muckle Pleasure, 

As ye in your Books may read at leisure." 

He paused, as Orators are used, 

And from his pocket quick produced 

A friendly Vase well stor'd and fill'd 

With good old wiskey twice distill'd, 

And having refresh'd his inward man, 

Went on with his harrangue again. 

" Is't not, my Brethren, a pretty Story 

That we who are the Land's chief Glory, 

Who are i' the number of God's elected, 

Should slighted thus be and neglected ? 

That we, who're the only Gospel Church, 

Should thus be left here in the lurch ; 

Whilst our most antichristian foes, 

Whose trade is war and hardy blows, 

(At least while some of the same Colour, 

With those who've caused us all this Dolor,) 

In Matchcoats warm and blankets drest, 

Are by the Q, rs much caress'd, 



APPENDIX E. 



607 



And live in peace by good warm fires, 

And have the extent of their desires ? 

Shall we put by such treatment base ? 

By Nox, we wont ! " — And broke Ins Vase. 

" Seeing then we've such good cause to hate 'em, 

What I intend's to exterpate 'em ; 

To suffer them no more to thrive, 

And leave nor Root nor Branch alive ; 

But would we madly leave our wives 

And Children, and expose our lives 

In search of these wh' infest our borders, 

And perpetrate such cruel murders ; 

It is most likely, by King Harry, 

That we should in the end miscarry. 

I deam therefore the wisest course is. 

That those who've beasts should mount their horses, 

And those who've none should march on foot, 

With as much quickness as will suit, 

To where those heathen, nothing fearful, 

That we will on their front and rear fall, 

Enjoy Sweet Otium in their Cotts, 

And dwell securely in their Hutts. 

And as they've nothing to defend them, 

We'll quickly to their own place send them ! " 

The following letter from Rev. John Elder to Colonel Shippen, will serve 
to exhibit the state of feeling among the frontier inhabitants, (pp. 426-428.) 

Paxton, Feb. 1, 1764. 

Dear Sir : 

Since I sealed the Governor's Letter, which you'll please to deliver to 
him, I suspect, from the frequent meetings I hear the people have had in 
diverse parts of the Frontier Counties, that an Expedition is immediately 
designed against the Indians at Philadelphia. It's well known that I have 
always used my utmost endeavors to discourage these proceedings ; but to 
little purpose : the minds of the Inhabitants are so exasperated against a 
particular set of men, deeply concerned in the government, for the singular 
regards they have always shown to savages, and the heavy burden by their 
means laid on the province in maintaining an expensive Trade and holding 
Treaties from time to time with the savages, without any prospect of advan- 
tage either to his Majesty or to the province, how beneficial soever it may 
have been to individuals, that it's in vain, nay even unsafe for any one to 
oppose their measures ; for were Col. Shippen here, tho' a gentleman higlily 
esteemed by the Frontier inhabitants, he would soon find it useless, if not 
dangerous to act in opposition to an enraged multitude. At first there were 
but, as I think, few concerned in these riots, & nothing intended by some 



608 



APPENDIX E. 



but to ease the province of part of its burden, and by others, who had suf- 
fered greatly in the late war, the gratifying a spirit of Revenge, yet the 
manner of the Quakers resenting these things has been, I think, very inju- 
rious and impolitick. The Presbyterians, who are the most numerous, I im- 
agine, of any denomination in the province, are enraged at their being charged 
in bulk with these facts, under the name of Scotch-Irish, and other ill- 
natured titles, and that the killing the Conestogoe Indians is compared to 
the Irish Massacres, and reckoned the most barbarous of either, so that 
things are grown to that pitch now that the country seems determined that 
no Indian Treaties shall be held, or savages maintained at the expense of 
the province, unless his Majesty's pleasure on these heads is well known ; 
for I understood to my great satisfaction that amid our great confusions, 
there are none, even of the most warm and furious tempers, but what are 
warmly attached to his Majesty, and would cheerfully risk their lives to pro- 
mote his service. What the numbers are of those going on the above-men- 
tioned Expedition, I can't possibly learn, as I'm informed they are collecting 
in all parts of the province ; however, this much may be depended on, that 
they have the good wishes of the country in general, and that there are few 
but what are now either one way or other embarked in the affair, tho' some 
particular persons, I'm informed, are grossly misrepresented in Philadelphia ; 
even my neighbor, Mr. Harris, it's said, is looked on there as the chief pro- 
moter of these riots, yet it's entirely false ; he had aided as much in oppo- 
sition to these measures as he could with any safety in his situation. Re- 
ports, however groundless, are spread by designing men on purpose to 
inflame matters, and enrage the parties against each other, and various 
methods used to accomplish their pernicious ends. As I am deeply con- 
cerned for the welfare of my country, I would do every thing in my power 
to promote its interests. I thought proper to give you these few hints ; 
you'll please to make what use you think proper of them. I would heartily 
wish that some effectual measures might be taken to heal these growing 
evils, and this I judge may be yet done, and Col. Armstrong, who is now in 
town, may be usefully employed for this purpose. 

Sir, 

I am, etc., 

John Elder. 

Extracts from a Quaker letter on the Paxton riots, (p. 436.) 

This letter is written with so much fidelity, and in so impartial a spirit, 
that it must always remain one of the best authorities in reference to these 
singular events. Although in general very accurate, its testimony has in a 
few instances been set aside in favor of the more direct evidence of eye- 
witnesses. It was published by Hazard in the twelfth volume of his Pennsyl- 
vania Register. I have, however, examined the original, which is still pre- 
served by a family in Philadelphia. The extracts here given form but a 
small part of the entire letter. 



APPENDIX E. 



609 



Before I proceed further it may not be amiss to inform thee that a great 
number of the inhabitants here approved of killing the Indians, and declared 
that they would not offer to oppose the Paxtoneers, unless they attacked the 
citizens, that is to say, themselves — for, if any judgment was to be formed 
from countenances and behavior, those who depended upon them for defence 
and protection, would have found their confidence shockingly misplaced. 

The number of persons in arms that morning was about six hundred, and 
as it was expected the insurgents would attempt to cross at the middle or 
upper ferry, orders were sent to bring the boats to this side, and to take 
away the ropes. Couriers were now seen continually coming in, their horses 
all of a foam, and people running with the greatest eagerness to ask them 
where the enemy were, and what were their numbers. The answers to 
these questions were various : sometimes they were at a distance, then near 
at hand — sometimes they were a thousand strong, then five hundred, then 
fifteen hundred ; in short, all was doubt and uncertainty. 

About eleven o'clock it was recollected the boat at the Sweed's ford 
was not secured, which, in the present case, was of the utmost consequence, 
for, as there was a considerable freshet in the Schuylkill, the securing that 
boat would oblige them to march some distance up the river, and thereby 
retard the execution of their scheme at least a day or two longer. Several 
persons therefore set off immediately to get it performed ; but they had not 
been gone long, before there was a general uproar — They are coming ! 
they are coming ! Where ? where ? Down Second street ! down Sec- 
ond street ! Such of the company as had grounded their firelocks, flew to 
arms, and began to prime ; the artillerymen threw themselves into order, and 
the people ran to get out of the way, for a troop of armed men, on horse- 
back, appeared in reality coming down the street, and one of the artillery- 
men was just going to apply the fatal match, when a person, perceiving the 
mistake, clapped his hat upon the touch-hole of the piece he was going to 
fire. Dreadful would have been the consequence, had the cannon dis- 
charged; for the men that appeared proved to be a company of German 
butchers and porters, under the command of Captain Hoffman. They had 
just collected themselves, and being unsuspicious of danger, had neglected 
to give notice of their coming ; — a false alarm was now called out, and all 
became quiet again in a few minutes. . . . 

The weather being now very wet, Capt. Francis, Capt. Wood, and Capt 
Mifflin, drew up their men under the market-house, which, not affording 
shelter for any more, they occupied Friends' meeting-house, and Capt. Jo- 
seph Wharton marched his company up stairs, into the monthly meeting 
room, as I have been told — the rest were stationed below. It happened to 
be the day appointed for holding of Youths' meeting, but never did the 
Quaker youth assemble in such a military manner — never was the sound 
of the drum heard before within those walls, nor ever till now was the Ban- 
ner of War displayed in that rostrum, from whence the art has been so zeal- 
ously declaimed against. Strange reverse of times, James — . Nothing of 
any consequence passed during the remainder of the day, except that 

77 



610 



APPENDIX E. 



Captain Coultas came into town at the head of a troop, which he had just 
raised in his own neighborhood. The Captain was one of those who had been 
marked out as victims by these devout conquerors, and word was sent to him 
from Lancaster to make his peace with Heaven, for that he had but about 
ten days to live. 

In the evening our Negotiators came in from Germantown. They had 
conferred with the Chiefs of this illustrious — , and have prevailed with 
them to suspend all hostility till such time as they should receive an answer 
to their petition or manifesto, which had been sent down the day before. 

The weather now clearing, the City forces drew up near the Court House, 
where a speech was made to them, informing them that matters had been 
misrepresented, — that the Paxtoneers were a set of very worthy men (or 
something to that purpose) who labored under great distress, — that Messrs. 
Smith, &c, were come (by their own authority) as representatives, from sev- 
eral counties, to lay their complaints before the Legislature, and that the 
reason for their arming themselves was for fear of being molested or abused. 
By whom ? Why, by the peaceable citizens of Philadelphia ! Ha ! ha ! ha ! 
Who can help laughing ? The harangue concluded with thanks for the 
trouble and expense they had been at, (about nothing,) and each retired to 
their several homes. The next day, when all was quiet, and nobody 
dreamed of any further disturbance, we were alarmed again. The report 
now was, that the Paxtoneers had broke the Treaty, and were just entering 
the city. It is incredible to think with what alacrity the people flew to 
arms ; in one quarter of an hour near a thousand of them were assembled, 
with a determination to bring the affair to a conclusion immediately, and not 
to suffer themselves to be harassed as they had been several days past. If 
the whole body of the enemy had come in, as was expected, the engage- 
ment would have been a bloody one, for the citizens were exasperated 
almost to madness ; but happily those that appeared did not exceed thirty, 
(the rest having gone homewards,) and as they behaved with decency, they 
were suffered to pass without opposition. Thus the storm blew over, and 
the Inhabitants dispersed themselves. . . . 

The Pennsylvania Gazette, usually a faithful chronicler of the events of 
the day, preserves a discreet silence on the subject of the Paxton riots, and 
contains no other notice of them than the following condensed statement : — 

On Saturday last, the City was alarmed with the News of great Numbers 
of armed Men, from the Frontiers, being on the several Roads, and moving 
towards Philadelphia. As their designs were unknown, and there were va- 
rious Reports concerning them, it was thought prudent to put the City in 
some Posture of Defence against any Outrages that might possibly be 
intended. The Inhabitants being accordingly called upon by the Governor, 
great numbers of them entered into an Association, and took Arms for the 
Support of Government, and Maintenance of good Order. 



APPENDIX E. 



611 



Six Companies of Foot, one of Artillery, and two Troops of Horse, were 
formed, and paraded, to which, it is said, some Thousands, who did not 
appear, were prepared to join themselves, in case any attempt should be 
made against the Town. The Barracks also, where the Indians are lodged, 
under Protection of the regular Troops, were put into a good Posture of 
Defence ; several Works being thrown up about them, and eight Pieces of 
Cannon planted there. 

The Insurgents, it seems, intended to rendezvous at Germantown ; but 
the Precautions taken at the several Ferries over Schuylkill impeded their 
Junction ; and those who assembled there, being made acquainted with the 
Force raised to oppose them, listened to the reasonable Discourses and 
Advice of some prudent Persons, who voluntarily went out to meet and 
admonish them ; and of some Gentlemen sent by the Governor, to know the 
Reasons of their Insurrection; and promised to return peaceably to their 
Habitations, leaving only two of then- Number to present a Petition to the 
Governor and Assembly ; on which the Companies raised in Town were 
thanked by the Governor on Tuesday Evening, and dismissed, and the City 
restored to its former Quiet. 

But on Wednesday Morning there was a fresh Alarm, occasioned by a 
false Report, that Four Hundred of the same People were on their March to 
Attack the Town. Immediately, on Beat of Drum, a much greater number 
of the Inhabitants, with the utmost Alacrity, put themselves under Arms ; 
but as the Truth was soon known, they were again thanked by the Gov- 
ernor, and dismissed ; the Country People being really dispersed, and gone 
home according to their Promise. — Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 1833. 

The following extract from a letter of Rev. John Ewing to Joseph Reed, 
affords a striking example of the excitement among the Presbyterians. 
(See Life and Cor. of Joseph Reed, I. 34.) 

" Feb. — , 1764. 

As to public affairs, our Province is greatly involved in intestine feuds, at 
a time, when we should rather unite, one and all, to manage the affairs of 
our several Governments, with prudence and discretion. A few designing 
men, having engrossed too much power into their hands, are pushing matters 
beyond all bounds. There are twenty-two Quakers in our Assembly, at pres- 
ent, who, although they won't absolutely refuse to grant money for the King's 
use, yet never fail to contrive matters in such a manner as to afford little or 
no assistance to the poor, distressed Frontiers ; while our public money is 
lavishly squandered away in supporting a number of savages, who have been 
murdering and scalping us for many years past. This has so enraged some 
desperate young men, who had lost their nearest relations, by these very 
Indians, to cut off about twenty Indians that lived near Lancaster, who had, 
during the war, carried on a constant intercourse with our other enemies ; 
and they came down to Germantown to inquire why Indians, known to be 
enemies, were supported, even in luxury, with the best that our markets 
afforded, at the public expense, while they were left in the utmost distress 



612 



APPENDIX E. 



on the Frontiers, in ■want of the necessaries of life. Ample pb,_oises were 
made to them that their grievances should be redressed, upon which they im- 
mediately dispersed and w r enthome. These persons have been unjustly rep- 
resented as endeavoring to overturn Government, when nothing was more dis- 
tant from their minds. However this matter may be looked upon in Britain, 
where you know very little of the matter, you may be assured that ninety-nine 
in an hundred of the Province are firmly persuaded, that they are maintaining 
our enemies, while our friends back are suffering the greatest extremities, 
neglected ; and that few, but Quakers, think that the Lancaster Indians have 
suffered any thing but their just deserts. 'Tis not a little surprising to us 
here, that orders should be sent from the Crown, to apprehend and bring to 
justice those persons who have cut off that nest of enemies that lived near 
Lancaster. They never were subjects to his Majesty; were a free, inde- 
pendent state, retaining all the powers of a free state ; sat in all our Treaties 
with the Indians, as one of the tribes belonging to the Six Nations, in alli- 
ance with us ; they entertained the French and Indian spies — gave intelli- 
gence to them of the defenceless state of our Province — furnished them 
with Gazette every week, or fortnight — gave them intelligence of all the 
dispositions of the Province army against them — were frequently w\. i the 
French and Indians at their forts and towns — supplied ther" : . warlike 
stores — joined with the strange Indians in their war-dances, and in the par- 
ties that made incursions on our Frontiers — were ready to take up the 
hatchet against the English openly, when the French requested it — actually 
murdered and scalped some of the Frontier inhabitants — insolently boasted 
of the murders they had committed, when they saw our blood was cooled, 
after the last Treaty at Lancaster — confessed that they had been at war 
with us, and would soon be at war with us again, (which accordingly hap- 
pened,) and even went so far as to put one of their own warriors, Jegarie, to 
death, because he refused to go to war with them against the English. All 
these things were known through the Frontier inhabitants, and are since 
proved upon oath. This occasioned them to be cut off by about forty or fifty 
persons, collected from all the Frontier counties, though they are called by 
the name of the little Township of Paxton, where, possibly, the smallest 
part of them resided. And what surprises us more than all the accounts 
we have from England, is, that our Assembly, in a petition they have drawn 
up, to the King, for a change of Government, should represent this Province 
in a state of uproa.r and riot, and when not a man in it has once resisted a 
single officer of the Government, nor a single act of violence committed, 
unless you call the Lancaster affair such, although it was no more than 
going to war with that tribe, as they had done before with others, without a 
formal proclamation of war by the Government. I have not time, as you 
may guess by this scrawl, to write more at this time, but only that I am 

y° urs ' &c - John Ewing. 



APPENDIX E. 



613 



3. Memorials of the Paxtox Men, (pp. 42G-443.) 

5. To the Honorable John Penn, Esq., Governor of the Province of 
Pennsylvania, and of the Counties of New-Castle, Kent, and Sussex, upon 
Delaware ; and to the Representatives of the Freemen of the said Province, 
in General Assembly met. 

We, Matthew Smith and James Gibson, in Behalf of ourselves and his 
Majesty's faithful and loyal Subjects, the Inhabitants of the Frontier Coun- 
ties of Lancaster, York, Cumberland, Berks, and Northampton, humbly beg 
Leave to remonstrate and lay before you the following Grievances, which 
we submit to your Wisdom for Redress. 

First. We apprehend that, as Freemen and English Subjects, we have an 
indisputable Title to the same Privileges and Immunities with his Majesty's 
other Subjects, who reside in the interior Counties of Philadelphia, Chester, 
and Bucks, and therefore ought not to be excluded from an equal Share 
with them in the very important Privilege of Legislation ; — nevertheless, 
contrary to the Proprietor's Charter, and the acknowledged Principles of 
comi ~>n Justice and Equity, our five Counties are restrained from electing 
more thtis i^n Representatives, viz., four for Lancaster, two for York, two 
for Cumberland, one for Berks, and one for Northampton, while the three 
Counties and City of Philadelphia, Chester and Bucks elect Twenty-six. 
This we humbly conceive is oppressive, unequal and unjust, the Cause 
of many of our Grievances, and an Infringement of our natural Privileges 
of Freedom and Equality ; wherefore we humbly pray that we may be 
no longer deprived of an equal Number with the three aforesaid Counties 
to represent us in Assembly. 

Secondly. We understand that a Bill is now before the House of As- 
sembly, wherein it is provided, that such Persons as shall be charged with 
killing any Indians in Lancaster County, shall not be tried in the County 
where the Fact was committed, but in the Counties of Philadelphia, 
Chester, or Bucks. This is manifestly to deprive British Subjects of their 
known Privileges, to cast an eternal Reproach upon whole Counties, as if 
they were unfit to serve their Country in the Quality of Jury-men, and to 
contradict the well known Laws of the British Nation, in a Point whereon 
Life, Liberty, and Security essentially depend ; namely, that of being tried 
by their Equals, in the Neighbourhood where their own, their Accusers, and 
the Witnesses Character and Credit, with the Circumstances of the Fact, 
are best known, and instead thereof putting their Lives in the Hands of 
Strangers, who may as justly be suspected of Partiality to, as the Frontier 
Counties can be of Prejudices against, Indians ; and this too, in Favour of 
Indians only, against his Majesty's faithful and loyal Subjects : Besides, it 
is well known, that the Design of it is to comprehend a Fact committed 
before such a Law was thought of. And if such Practices were tolerated, 
no Man could be secure in his most invaluable Interest. — We are also 
informed, to our great Surprise, that this Bill has actually received the 

ZZ 



614 



APPENDIX E. 



Assent of a Majority of the House ; which we are persuaded could not 
have been the Case, had our Frontier Counties been equally represented in 
Assembly. — However, we hope that the Legislature of this Province will 
never enact a Law of so dangerous a Tendency, or take away from his 
Majesty's good Subjects a Privilege so long esteemed sacred by Eng- 
lishmen. 

Thirdly. During the late and present Indian War, the Frontiers of this 
Province have been repeatedly attacked and ravaged by skulking Parties 
of the Indians, who have, with the most Savage Cruelty, murdered Men, 
Women, and Children, without Distinction, and have reduced near a 
Thousand Families to the most extreme Distress. — It grieves us to the 
very Heart to see such of our Frontier Inhabitants as have escaped Savage 
Fury, with the Loss of their Parents, their Children, their Wives or Rela- 
tives, left Destitute by the Public, and exposed to the most cruel Poverty 
and Wretchedness, while upwards of an Hundred and Twenty of these 
Savages, who are, with great Reason, suspected of being guilty of these 
horrid Barbarities, under the Mask of Friendship, have procured them- 
selves to be taken under the Protection of the Government, with a View to 
elude the Fury of the brave Relatives of the Murdered, and are now main- 
tained at the public Expence. — Some of these Indians, now in the Barracks 
of Philadelphia, are confessedly a Part of the Wyalusing Indians, which 
Tribe is now at War with us ; and the others are the Moravian Indians, 
who, living with us, under the Cloak of Friendship, carried on a Correspond- 
ence with our known Enemies on the Great Island. — We cannot but 
observe, with Sorrow and Indignation, that some Persons in this Province 
are at Pains to extenuate the barbarous Cruelties practised by these Sav- 
ages on our murdered Brethren and Relatives, which are shocking to human 
Nature, and must pierce every Heart, but that of the hardened Perpe- 
trators or their Abettors. Nor is it less distressing to hear Others pleading, 
that although the Wyalusing Tribe is at War with us, yet that Part of it 
which is under the Protection of the Government, may be friendly to the 
English, and innocent : — In what Nation under the Sun was it ever the 
Custom, that when a neighbouring Nation took up Arms, not an Individual 
should be touched, but only the Persons that offered Hostilities ? — Who 
ever proclaimed War with a Part of a Nation and not with the whole ? — 
Had these Indians disapproved of the Perfidy of their Tribe, and been 
willing to cultivate and preserve Friendship with us, why did they not give 
Notice of the War before it happened, as it is known to be the Result of 
long Deliberations, and a preconcerted Combination among them ? — Why 
did they not leave their Tribe immediately, and come among us, before 
there was Ground to suspect them, or War was actually waged with their 
Tribe ? — No, they stayed amongst them, were privy to their Murders and 
Ravages, until we had destroyed their Provisions, and when they could no 
longer subsist at Home, they come not as Deserters, but as Friends, to be 
maintained through the Winter, that they may be able to scalp and butcher 
us in the Spring. 



APPENDIX E. 



615 



And as to the Moravian Indians, there are strong Grounds at least to 
suspect their Friendship, as it is known that they carried on a Correspond- 
ence with our Enemies on the Great Island. — We killed three Indians 
going from Bethlehem to the Great Island with Blankets, Ammunition, and 
Provisions, which is an undeniable Proof that the Moravian Indians were in 
Confederacy with our open Enemies. And we cannot but be filled with 
Indignation to hear this Action of ours painted in the most odious and 
detestable Colours, as if we had inhumanly murdered our Guides, who pre- 
served us from perishing in the Woods ; when we only killed three of our 
known Enemies, who attempted to shoot us when we surprised them. — 
And, besides all this, we understand that one of these very Indians is 
proved, by the Oath of Stinton's Widow, to be the very Person that mur- 
dered her Husband. — Plow then comes it to pass, that he alone, of all the 
Moravian Indians, should join the Enemy to murder that family ? — Or can 
it be supposed that any Enemy Indians, contrary to their known Custom of 
making War, should penetrate into the Heart of a settled Country, to burn, 
plunder, and murder the Inhabitants, and not molest any Houses in their 
Return, or ever be seen or heard of? — Or how can we account for it, that 
no Ravages have been committed in Northampton County since the Re- 
moval of the Moravian Indians, when the Great Cove has been struck 
since ? — These Things put it beyond Doubt with us that the Indians now 
at Philadelphia are his Majesty's perfidious Enemies, and therefore, to pro- 
tect and maintain them at the public Expence, while our suffering Brethren 
on the Frontiers are almost destitute of the Necessaries of Life, and are 
neglected by the Public, is sufficient to make us mad with Rage, and tempt 
us to do what nothing but the most violent Necessity can vindicate. — We 
humbly and earnestly pray therefore, that those Enemies of his Majesty may 
be removed as soon as possible out of the Province. 

Fourthly. We humbly conceive that it is contrary to the Maxims of good 
Policy and extremely dangerous to our Frontiers, to suffer any Indians, of 
what Tribe soever, to live within the inhabited Parts of this Province, while 
we are engaged in an Indian War, as Experience has taught us that they 
are all perfidious, and their Claim to Freedom and Independency, puts it in 
their Power to act as Spies, to entertain and give Intelligence to our Ene- 
mies, and to furnish them with Provisions and warlike Stores. — To this 
fatal Intercourse between our pretended Friends and open Enemies, we 
must ascribe the greatest Part of the Ravages and Murders that have been 
committed in the Course of this and the last Indian War. — We therefore 
pray that this Grievance be taken under Consideration, and remedied. 

Fifthly. W e cannot help lamenting that no Provision has been hitherto 
made, that such of our Frontier Inhabitants as have been wounded in De- 
fence of the Province, their Lives and Liberties may be taken Care of, and 
cured of their Wounds, at the public Expence. — We therefore pray that 
this Grievance may be redressed. 

Sixthly. In the late Indian War this Province, with others of his 
Majesty's Colonies, gave Rewards for Indian Scalps, to encourage the 



616 



APPENDIX E. 



seeking them in their own Country, as the most likely Means of destroying 1 
or reducing them to Reason ; but no such Encouragement has been given 
in this War, which has damped the Spirits of many brave Men, who are 
willing to venture their Lives in Parties against the Enemy. — We therefore 
pray that public Rewards may be proposed for Indian Scalps, which may 
be adequate to the Dangers attending Enterprises of this Nature. 

Seventhly. We daily lament that Numbers of our nearest and dearest 
Relatives are still in Captivity among the savage Heathen, to be trained up 
in all their Ignorance and Barbarity, or to be tortured to Death with all the 
Contrivances of Indian Cruelty, for attempting to make their Escape from 
Bondage. We see they pay no Regard to the many solemn Promises 
which they have made to restore our Friends who are in Bondage amongst 
them. — We therefore earnestly pray that no Trade may hereafter be per- 
mitted to be carried on with them, until our Brethren and Relatives are 
brought Home to us. 

Eighthly. We complain that a certain Society of People in this Province 
in the late Indian War, and at several Treaties held by the King's Repre- 
sentatives, openly loaded the Indians with Presents ; and that F. P., a Leader 
cf the said Society, in Defiance of all Government, not only abetted our 
Indian Enemies, but kept up a private Intelligence with them, and publickly 
received from them a Belt of Wampum, as if he had been our Governor, or 
authorized by the King to treat with his Enemies. — By this Means the 
Indians have been taught to despise us as a weak and disunited People, and, 
from this fatal Source have arose many of our Calamities under which we 
groan. — We humbly pray, therefore, that this Grievance may be redressed, 
and that no private Subject be hereafter permitted to treat with, or carry on 
a Correspondence with our Enemies. 

Ninthly. We cannot but observe with Sorrow, that Fort Augusta, which 
has been very expensive to this Province, has afforded us but little Assistance 
during this or the last War. The Men that were stationed at that Place 
neither helped our distressed Inhabitants to save their Crops, nor did they 
attack our Enemies in their Towns, or patrol on our Frontiers. — We 
humbly request that proper Measures may be taken to make that Garrison 
more serviceable to us in our Distress, if it can be done. 

N. B. We are far from intending any Reflection against the Com- 
manding Officer stationed at Augusta, as we presume his Conduct wa3 
always directed by those from whom he received his Orders. 

Signed on Behalf of ourselves, and by Appointment of a great Number 
of the Frontier Inhabitants, 

Matthew Smith. 
James Gibson. 



APPENDIX E. 



617 



The Declaration of the injured Frontier Inhabitants, together with 
a brief Sketch of Grievances the good Inhabitants of the Province labor 
tinder. 

Inasmuch as the Killing those Indians at Conestogoe Manor and Lancas- 
ter has been, and may be, the Subject of much Conversation, and by invidi- 
ous Representations of it, which some, we doubt not, will industriously 
spread, many, unacquainted with the true State of Affairs, may be led to 
pass a severer Censure on the Authors of those Facts, and any others of the 
like Nature which may hereafter happen, than we are persuaded they would, 
if Matters were duly understood and deliberated ; we think it therefore 
proper thus openly to declare- ourselves, and render some brief Hints of the 
Reasons of our Conduct, which we must, and frankly do, confess nothing but 
Necessity itself could induce us to, or justify us in, as it bears an Appearance 
of flying in the Face of Authority, and is attended with much Labour, Fatigue 
and Expence. 

Ourselves then, to a Man, we profess to be loyal Subjects to the best of 
Kings, our rightful Sovereign George the Third, firmly attached to his Royal 
Person, Interest and Government, and of Consequence equally opposite to 
the Enemies of his Throne and Dignity, whether openly avowed, or more 
dangerously concealed under a Mask of falsely pretended Friendship, and 
chearfully willing to offer our Substance and Lives in his Cause. 

These Indians, known to be firmly connected in Friendship with our 
openly avowed embittered Enemies, and some of whom have, by several 
Oaths, been proved to be Murderers, and who, by then- better Acquaintance 
with the Situation and State of our Frontier, were more capable of doing us 
Mischief, we saw, with Indignation, cherished and caressed as dearest 
Friends ; — But this, alas ! is but a Part, a small Part, of that excessive 
Regard manifested to Indians, beyond his Majesty's loyal Subjects, whereof 
we complain, and which, together with various other Grievances, have not 
only inflamed with Resentment the Breasts of a Number, and urged them 
to the disagreeable Evidence of it, they have been constrained to give, but 
have heavily displeased, by far, the greatest Part of the good Inhabitants 
of this Province. 

Should we here reflect to former Treaties, the exorbitant Presents, and 
great Servility therein paid to Indians, have long been oppressive Grievances 
we have groaned under ; and when at the last Indian Treaty held at Lan- 
caster, not only was the Blood of cur many murdered Brethren tamely cov- 
ered, but our poor unhappy captivated Friends abandoned to Slavery among 
the Savages, by concluding a Friendship with the Indians, and allowing 
them a plenteous Trade of all kinds of Commodities, without those being 
restored, or any properly spirited Requisition made of them : — How gen- 
eral Dissatisfaction those Measures gave, the Murmurs of all good People 
(loud as they dare to utter them) to this Day declare. And had here infatu- 
ated Steps of Conduct, and a manifest Partiality in Favour of Indians, made 
78 ZZ* 



618 



APPENDIX E. 



a final Pause, happy had it been : — We perhaps had grieved in Silence for 
our abandoned enslaved Brethren among the Heathen, but Matters of a 
later Date are still more flagrant Reasons of Complaint. — When last Sum- 
mer his Majesty's Forces, under the Command of Colonel Bouquet, marched 
through this Province, and a Demand was made by his Excellency, General 
Amherst, of Assistance, to escort Provisions, &c, to relieve that important 
Post, Fort Pitt, yet not one Man was granted, although never any Thing 
appeared more reasonable or necessary, as the Interest of the Province lay 
so much at Stake, and the Standing of the Frontier Settlements, in any 
Manner, evidently depended, under God, on the almost despaired of Success 
of his Majesty's little Army, whose Valour the whole Frontiers with Grati- 
tude acknowledge, as the happy Means of having saved from Ruin great 
Part of the Province : — But when a Number of Indians, falsely pretended 
Friends, and having among them some proved on Oath to have been guilty 
of Murder since this War begun ; when they, together with others, known 
to be his Majesty's Enemies, and who had been in the Battle against Colonel 
Bouquet, reduced to Distress by the Destruction of their Corn at the Great 
Island, and up the East Branch of Susquehanna, pretend themselves Friends, 
and desire a Subsistence, they are openly caressed, and the Public, that 
could not be indulged the Liberty of contributing to his Majesty's Assist- 
ance, obliged, as Tributaries to Savages, to Support these Villains, these 
Enemies to our King and our Country ; nor only so, but the Hands that 
were closely shut, nor would grant his Majesty's General a single Farthing 
against a savage Foe, have been liberally opened, and the public Money 
basely prostituted, to hire, at an exorbitant Rate, a mercenary Guard to pro- 
tect his Majesty's worst of Enemies, those falsely pretended Indian Friends, 
while, at the same Time, Hundreds of poor, distressed Families of his 
Majesty's Subjects, obliged to abandon their Possessions, and fly for their 
Lives at least, are left, except a small Relief at first, in the most distressing 
Circumstances to starve neglected, save what the friendly Hand of private 
Donations has contributed to their Support, wherein they who are most pro- 
fuse towards Savages have carefully avoided having any Part. — When last 
Summer the Troops raised for Defence of the Province were limited to 
certain Bounds, nor suffered to attempt annoying our Enemies in their Hab- 
itations, and a Number of brave Volunteers, equipped at their own Expence, 
marched in September up the Susquehanna, met and defeated their Enemy, 
with the Loss of some of their Number, and having others dangerously 
wounded, not the least Thanks or Acknowledgment was made them from 
the Legislature for the confessed Service they had done, nor any the least 
Notice or Care taken of their Wounded ; whereas, when a Seneca Indian, 
who, by the Information of many, as well as by his own Confession, had 
been, through the last War, our inveterate Enemy, had got a Cut in his 
Head last Summer in a Quarrel he had with his own Cousin, and it was 
reported in Philadelphia that his Wound was dangerous, a Doctor was im- 
mediately employed, and sent to Fort Augusta, to take Care of him, and 
cure him, if possible. — To these may be added, that though it was impossible 



APPENDIX E. 



619 



to obtain through the Summer, or even yet, any Premium for Indian Scalps, 
or Encouragement to excite Volunteers to go forth against them, yet when 
a few of them, known to be the Fast Friends of our Enemies, and some of 
them Murderers themselves, when these have been struck by a distressed, 
bereft, injured Frontier, a liberal Reward is offered for apprehending the 
Perpetrators of that horrible Crime of killing his Majesty's cloaked Enemies, 
and their Conduct painted in the most atrocious Colors ; while the horrid 
Ravages, cruel Murders, and most shocking Barbarities, committed by 
Indians on his Majesty's Subjects, are covered over, and excused, under the 
charitable Term of this being their Method of making War. 

But to recount the many repeated Grievances whereof we might justly 
complain, and Instances of a most violent Attachment to Indians, were 
tedious beyond the Patience of a Job to endure ; nor can better be expected ; 
nor need we be surprised at Indians Insolence and Villainy, when it is con- 
sidered, and which can be proved from the public Records of a certain 
County, that some Time before Conrad Weiser died, some Indians belong- 
ing to the Great Island or Wyalousing, assured him that Israel Pemberton, 
(an ancient Leader of that Faction which, for so long a Time, have found 
Means to enslave the Province to Indians,) together with others of the 
Friends, had given them a Rod to scourge the white People that were settled 
on the purchased Lands ; for that Onas had cheated them out of a great 
Deal of Land, or had not given near sufficient Price for what he had bought ; 
and that the Traders ought also to be scourged, for that they defrauded the 
Indians, by selling Goods to them at too dear a Rate ; and that this Relation 
is Matter of Fact, can easily be proved in the County of Berks. — Such is 
our unhappy Situation, under the Villainy, Infatuation and Influence of a 
certain Faction, that have got the political Reins in their Hands, and tamely 
tyrannize over the other good Subjects of the Province! — And can it be 
thought strange, that a Scene of such Treatment as this, and the now 
adding, in this critical Juncture, to all our former Distresses, that disagree- 
able Burden of supporting, in the very Heart of the Province, at so great 
an Expence, between One and Two hundred Indians, to the great Disquie- 
tude of the Majority of the good Inhabitants of this Province, should 
awaken the Resentment of a People grossly abused, unrighteously bur- 
dened, and made Dupes and Slaves to Indians ? — And must not all well- 
disposed People entertain a charitable Sentiment of those who, at their own 
great Expence and Trouble, have attempted, or shall attempt, rescuing a 
laboring Land from a Weight so oppressive, Unreasonable, and unjust ? — It 
is this we design, it is this we are resolved to prosecute, though it is with 
great Reluctance we are obliged to adopt a Measure not so agreeable as 
could be desired, and to which Extremity alone compels. — God save the 
King. 



APPENDIX F. 



CAMPAIGN OF 1764. 



li Bouquet's Expedition. 

Letter — General Gage to Lord Halifax, December 13, 1764. (p. 502.) 

The Perfidy of the Shawanese and Delawares, and their having broken 
the ties, which even the Savage Nations hold sacred amongst each other, 
required vigorous measures to reduce them. We had experienced their 
treachery so often, that I determined to make no peace with them, but in 
the Heart of their Country, and upon such terms as should make it as 
secure as it was possible. This conduct has produced all the good effects 
which could be wished or expected from it. Those Indians have been 
humbled and reduced to accept of Peace upon the terms prescribed to 
them, in such a manner as will give reputation to His Majesty's Arms 
amongst the several Nations. The Regular and Provincial Troops under 
Colonel Bouquet, having been joined by a good body of Volunteers from 
Virginia, and others from Maryland and Pennsylvania, marched from Fort 
Pitt the Beginning of October, and got to Tuscaroras about the fifteenth. 
The March of the Troops into their Country threw the Savages into the 
greatest Consternation, as they had hoped their Woods would protect them, 
and had boasted of the Security of their Situation from our Attacks. The 
Indians hovered round the Troops during their March, but despairing of 
success in an Action, had recourse to Negotiations. They were told that 
they might have Peace, but every Prisoner in their possession must first be 
delivered up. They brought in near twenty, and promised to deliver the 
Rest ; but as their promises were not regarded, they engaged to deliver the 
whole on the 1st of November, at the Forks of the Muskingham, about one 
hundred and fifty miles from Fort Pitt, the Centre of the Delaware Towns, 
and near to the most considerable settlement of the Shawanese. Colonel 
Bouquet kept them in sight, and moved his Camp to that Place. He soon 
obliged the Delawares and some broken tribes of Mohikons, Wiandots, and 



APPENDIX F. 



621 



Mingoes, to bring in all their Prisoners, even to the Children born of White 
Women, and to tie those who were grown as Savage as themselves and 
unwilling to leave them, and bring them bound to the Camp. They were 
then told that they must appoint deputies to go to Sir William Johnson to 
receive such terms as should be imposed upon them, which the Nations 
should agree to ratify ; and, for the security of their performance of this, 
and that no farther Hostilities should be committed, a number of their Chiefs 
must remain in our hands. The above Nations subscribed to these terms ; 
but the Shawanese were more obstinate, and were particularly averse to the 
giving of Hostages. But finding their obstinacy had no effect, and would 
only tend to their destruction, the Troops having penetrated into the Heart 
of their Country, they at length became sensible that there was no safety 
but in Submission, and were obliged to stoop to the same Conditions as the 
other nations. They immediately gave up forty Prisoners, and promised 
the Rest should be sent to Fort Pitt in the Spring. This last not being 
admitted, the immediate Restitution of all the Prisoners being the sine qua 
non of peace, it was agreed, that parties should be sent from the Army into 
their towns, to collect the Prisoners, and conduct them to Fort Pitt. They 
delivered six of their principal Chiefs as hostages into our Hands, and 
appointed their deputies to go to Sir William Johnson, in the same manner 
as the Rest. The Number of Prisoners already delivered exceeds two 
hundred, and it was expected that our Parties would bring in near one 
hundred more from the Shawanese Towns. These Conditions seem suf- 
ficient Proofs of the Sincerity and Humiliation of those Nations, and in 
justice to Colonel Bouquet, I must testify the Obligations I have to him, 
and that nothing but the firm and steady conduct, which he observed in all 
his Transactions with those treacherous Savages, would ever have brought 
them to a serious Peace. 

I must flatter myself, that the Country is restored to its former Tran- 
quility, and that a general, and, it is hoped, lasting Peace is concluded with 
all the Indian Nations who have taken up Arms against his Majesty. 

I remain, 

etc., 

Thomas Gage. 



In Assembly, January 15, 1765, A. M. 

To the Honourable Henry Bouquet, Esq., Commander in Chief of His 
Majesty's Forces in the Southern Department of America. 

The Address of the Representatives of the Freemen of the Province of 
Pennsylvania, in General Assembly met. 

Sir : 

The Representatives of the Freemen of the Province of Pennsylvania, 
in General Assembly met, being informed that you intend shortly to embark 



622 



APPENDIX F. 



for England, and moved with a due Sense of the important Services you 
have rendered to his Majesty, his Northern Colonies in general, and to this 
Province in particular, during our late Wars with the French, and barbarous 
Indians, in the remarkable Victory over the savage Enemy, united to oppose 
you, near Bushy Run, in August, 1763, when on your March for the Relief 
of Pittsburg, owing, under God, to your Intrepidity and superior Skill in 
Command, together with the Bravery of your Officers and little Army ; as 
also in your late March to the Country of the savage Nations, with the 
Troops under your Direction ; thereby striking Terror through the numerous 
Indian Tribes around you ; laying a Foundation for a lasting as well as 
honorable Peace, and rescuing, from savage Captivity, upwards of Two 
Hundred of our Christian Brethren, Prisoners among them. These eminent 
Services, and your constant Attention to the Civil Rights of his Majesty's 
Subjects in this Province, demand, Sir, the grateful Tribute of Thanks from 
all good Men ; and therefore we, the Representatives of the Freemen of 
Pennsylvania, unanimously for ourselves, and in Behalf of all the People 
of this Province, do return you our most sincere and hearty Thanks for 
these your great Services, wishing you a safe and pleasant Voyage to Eng- 
land, with a kind and gracious Reception from his Majesty. 

Signed, by Order of the House, 

Joseph Fox, Speaker. 



2. Condition and Temper of the Western Indians. 

Extract from a Letter of Sir William Johnson to the Board of Trade, 
1784, December 26. 

Your Lordships will please to observe that for many months before the 
march of Colonel Bradstreet's army, several of the Western Nations had 
expressed a desire for peace, and had ceased to commit hostilities, that even 
Pontiac inclined that way, but did not choose to venture his person by 
coming into any of the posts. This was the state of affairs when I treated 
with the Indians at Niagara, in which number were fifteen hundred of the 
Western Nations, a number infinitely more considerable than those who 
were twice treated with at Detroit, many of whom are the same people, 
particularly the Hurons and Chippewas. In the mean time it now appears, 
from the very best authorities, and can be proved by the oath of several 
respectable persons, prisoners at the Illinois and amongst the Indians, as 
also from the accounts of the Indians themselves, that not only many French 
traders, but also French officers came amongst the Indians, as they said, 
fully authorized to assure them that the French King was determined to 
support them to the utmost, and not only invited them to the Illinois, where 
they were plentifully supplied with ammunition and other necessaries, but 
also sent several canoes at different times up the Illinois river, to the 
Miamis, and others, as well as up the Ohio to the Shawanese and Delawares, 



APPENDIX F. 



623 



as by Major Smallman's account, and several others, (then prisoners,) 
transmitted me by Colonel Bouquet, and one of my officers who accompanied 
him, will appear. That in an especial manner the French promoted the 
interest of Pontiac, whose influence is now become so considerable, as Gen- 
eral Gage observes in a late letter to me, that it extends even to the Mouth 
of the Mississippi, and has been the principal occasion of our not as yet 
gaining the Illinois, which the French as well as Indians are interested in 
preventing. This Pontiac is not included in the late Treaty at Detroit, and 
is at the head of a great number of Indians privately supported by the 
French, an officer of whom was about three months ago at the Miamis 
Castle, at the Scioto Plains, Muskingum, and several other places. The 
Western Indians, who it seems ridicule the whole expedition, will be influ- 
enced to such a pitch, by the interested French on the one side, and the 
influence of Pontiac on the other, that we have great reason to apprehend 
a renewal of hostilities, or at least that they and the Twightees (Miamis) 
will strenuously oppose our possessing the Illinois, which can never be 
accomplished without their consent. And indeed it is not to be wondered that 
they should be concerned at our occupying that country, when we con- 
sider that the French (be their motive what it will) loaded them with favors, 
and continue* to do so, accompanied with all outward marks of esteem, and 
an address peculiarly adapted to their manners, which infallibly gains upon 
all Indians, who judge by extremes only, and with all their acquaintance with 
us upon the frontiers, have never found any thing like it, but on the contrary, 
harsh treatment, angry words, and in short any thing which can be thought of 
to inspire them with a dislike to our manners and a jealousy of our views. I 
have seen so much of these matters, and I am so well convinced of the utter 
aversion that our people have for them in general, and of the imprudence 
with which they constantly express it, that I absolutely despair of our seeing 
tranquility established, until your Lordships' plan is fully settled, so as I 
may have proper persons to reside at the Posts, whose business it shall be to 
remove their prejudices, and whose interest it becomes to obtain their esteem 
and friendship. 

The importance of speedily possessing the Illinois, and thereby securing 
a considerable branch of trade, as well as cutting off the channel by which 
our enemies have been and will always be supplied, is a matter I have very 
much at heart, and what I think may be effected this winter by land by Mr. 
Croghan, in case matters can be so far settled with the Twightees, Shawa- 
noes, and Pontiac, as to engage the latter, with some chiefs of the before- 
mentioned nations, to accompany him with a garrison. The expense attend- 
ing this will be large, but the end to be obtained is too considerable to be 
neglected. I have accordingly recommended it to the consideration of Gen- 
eral Gage, and shall, on the arrival of the Shawanoes, Delawares, &c, here, 
do all in my power to pave the way for effecting it. I shall also make such 
a peace with them, as will be most for the credit and advantage of the 
crown, and the security of the trade and frontiers, and tie them down to such 
conditions as Indians will most probably observe. 



NOTE. 



More than half the documents intended for publication in the Appendix 
have been omitted, from an unwillingness to increase the size of the 
volume. 

Of the accompanying maps, the first two were constructed for the illus- 
tration of this work. The others are fac-similes from the surveys of the able 
engineer Thomas Hutchins, the friend of Colonel Bouquet, and chronicler 
of his expeditions into the Indian country. The original of the larger of 
these fac-similes is prefixed to Hutchins' Account of Bouquet's Expedition. 
That of the smaller will be found in his Topographical Description of Vir- 
ginia, etc. Both these works are rare. 



INDEX. 



A. 

Acadia, dispute concerning its bounda- 
ries, 86. Outrage upon its people, 102. 
Albany, 135. 

Algonquin family, the, its extent, 25. 

Algonquins, Northern, the, their sum- 
mer and winter life, 31, 405. Their 
legendary law, 33. 

Allegory of the Delaware Indian, ISO. 

Amalgamation of French and In- 
dians, 69. 

Amherst, Sir Jeffrey, captures Ticon- 
deroga, 112. His character, 172. His 
efforts for the prosecution of the 
war, 345. Eesigns his command, 
398. 

Andastes, the, 22. 

Armstrong, Colonel, his expedition up 

the Susquehanna, 394. 
Atotarho, tradition of, 11. 
Aubry, his council with the Indians, 

537. 

Autumn at Detroit, 404. 



B. 

Backwoodsman of Virginia, his charac- 
ter, 378. 

Ball-play of the Indians at Michilli- 

mackinac, 297. 
Battle of Bushy Run, 359, 598. Of 

Lake George, 103. Of the Mononga- 

hela, 98. Of Quebec, 121. 
Bedford, Fort, attacked by Indians, 331. 

Beleaguered by Indians, 357. 

79 



Bloody Bridge, fight of, 272. 

Borderer, the dying, 349. 

Borders, the war on the, 344. 

Bouquet, Colonel, ordered to relieve 
Fort Pitt, 346. His army leaves 
Carlisle, 352. His life and charac- 
ter, 353. March of his army, 357. 
His victory at Bushy Run, 359. His 
march into the Indian country, 1764, 
482. Forces the Indians to ask peace, 
487. His council on the Muskin- 
gum, 488. He compels them to 
surrender their prisoners, 494. Grants 
peace to the Indians, 498. His pro- 
motion, 511. His death, 512. His 
expedition into the Indian country, 
1764, 620. Vote of thanks for his 
services, 621. 

Braddock, General, sails for America, 
92. Marches against Fort du Quesne, 
94. His defeat and death, 98, 100. 

Bradstreet, Colonel, his character, 448. 
His army on the lakes, 449. Deceived 
by the Indians, 461. Treats with the 
Indians at Detroit, 466. Return of 
his army, 476. 

Brebeuf, his martyrdom, 47. 

Bull, Captain, captured by the Iroquois, 
407. 

Bushy Run, battle of, 359, 598. 
C. 

Cahokia, village of, 569. 
Calhoun, his escape, 327. 
Calumet dance at Detroit, 185. 
AAA 



626 



INDEX. 



Campbell, Major, his embassy to Pon- 
tiac's camp, 210. Made prisoner by 
Pontiac, 212. His death, 261. 

Canada, its military efficiency, 45. Its 
religious zeal, 45. Attacked by the 
Iroquois, 60. State of, in 1759, 111. 
Conquered by the English, 126. 

Canadians, the, their character, 43. 

Cannibalism of the Indians at Michilli- 
mackinac, 313. 

Captive, the escaped, 388. 

Captives, sufferings of, 387. 

Carlisle, alarm at, 347. Scenes at, 350. 

Carousal of the Indians at Detroit, 235. 

Catharine, she betrays the Indian plot, 
193. 

Champlain, his expedition against the 
Iroquois, 59. 

Chapman, his escape from torture, 330. 

Character of the Indian, 35. Of the 
French Canadian, 43. Of the French 
savage, 70. Of hunters and trap- 
pers, 141. Of the Virginian back- 
woodsman, 378. Of the Creole of 
the Illinois, 518. 

Chouteau, Pierre, 523, 568. 

Christie, Ensign, his defence of Presqu'- 
Isle, 246. 

Civilization and barbarism, 140. 

Collision of French and English colo- 
nies, 85. 

Colonies, French and English, com- 
pared, 41. 

Conestoga, manor of, 411. 

Conestoga Indians, massacred by the 
Paxton men, 414, 417. Evidence 
against, 604. 

Conspiracy, Pontiac's, 161. 

Council at the Piver Ecorces, 177. 

Courage of the Indians, its character, 217. 

Coureurs des bois, 69. 

Croghan, George, his mission to the 
west, 539. His councils at Fort Pitt, 
544. Attacked by Indians, 550. His 
meeting with Pontiac, 552. His coun- 
cils with Indians at Detroit, 553. 
Result of his mission, 558. 

Crown Point, 85. 

Cuyler, Lieutenant, capture of his de- 
tachment, 231, 233. 



D. 

DAbbadie, 535. 

Dalzell, Captain, he sails for Detroit, 
267. His arrival, 269. His sortie 
from Detroit, 270. His death, 275. 

Davers, Sir Robert, murdered near De- 
troit, 207. 

Delawares, the, their history and charac- 
ter, 26. Forced to remove westward, 
76. Their treaty with the English in 
1757, 127. 

Detroit, surrendered to Major Rogers, 
150. Black Rain at, 187. Its origin 
and history, 187. Its French popula- 
tion, 189. Indians of its neighbor- 
hood, 189. Its defences, its garrison, 
190. Plot against its garrison de- 
feated, 199. General attack upon it, 
207. The Indians continue to block- 
ade it, 251. Truce granted to the 
Indians at, 402. Its garrison relieved 
by Bradstreet, 465. Councils at, 
1765, 553. 

Devil's Hole, ambuscade at, 374. 

Dieskau, Baron, sails from Brest, 92. 

Dinwiddie, Governor, sends Washing- 
ton to the Ohio, 87. 



E. 

Ecorces, River, council at the, 177. 

Ecuyer, Captain, his speeches to the In- 
dian chiefs, 334, 340. 

Elder, John, his efforts to defend the 
frontier, 391 . His position and charac- 
ter, 412. He remonstrates with the 
Paxton men, 417. 

English, their impolitic course towards 
the Indians, 154. 

Eries, the, 22. 

Etherington, Captain, his letter to Glad- 
wyn, 242. Made prisoner by the In- 
dians, 298. His letter to Gorell, 319. 



F. 

Feast of dogs, 259. 



INDEX. 



627 



Fight of Bloody Bridge, 272. 
Fire rafts, 263.. 

Eisher, murdered at Detroit, 205. 

Forest traveller, the, 137. 

Forest warfare, difficulties of, 171. 

Franklin, Benjamin, his embassy to the 
Paxton men, 438. 

Eraser, Lieutenant, his mission to the 
Illinois, 546. 

Frederic, Fort, 85. 

French, English, and Indians, 58. 

French, the, their increasing power in 
the west, 63. Their intrigues among 
the Indians, 157. 

French posts in the west, 55. 

Frontenac, Count, his expedition against 
the Iroquois, 61. 

Frontier forts and settlements, 323. 

Frontiers of Pennsylvania and Vir- 
ginia, 379, 380. 

Frontiers, desolation of, 381. 

Frontiersmen of Pennsylvania, their 
distress and desperation, 409. Their 
turbulent conduct, 541. 

Fur-trade, the, of the French and Eng- 
lish, 63, 64. English, its disorders, 155. 

Fur-traders, English, 71, 137. 

G. 

Gage, General, assumes the command 
in America, 398. 

Gladwyn, Major, his address and resolu- 
tion, 194, 199. His narrow escape, 266. 

Glendenning, Archibald, attack on his 
house, 383. 

Gorell, Lieutenant, his prudence and 
address, 318. He abandons Green 
Bay, 321. 

Goshen, false alarm at, 372. 

Grant. Captain, he conducts the retreat 
of the English at Bloody Bridge, 277. 

Green Bay, 284, 317. 

H. 

Hay, Lieutenant, sallies from Detroit, 
260. 



Henry, Alexander, his adventures at 
Michillimackiuac, 286. Warned of 
danger by Wawatam, 294. His narrow 
escape, 299. His adventures, 307. 
His account of an Indian oracle, 451. 
His Indian battalion, 460. 

Holmes, Ensign, detects an Indian plot, 
167. His death, 245. 

Hurons, the, their character, 19. Con- 
quered by the Iroquois, 21. 

Blinois, the, nation of. 29. French set- 
tlements at, 139. Its character and 
products, 514. Its colonization, 517. 
Its French population, 518. Neighbor- 
ing Indians, 520. Its cession to the 
English, 522. Occupied by the Eng- 
lish, 559. 



I. 

Indian tribes, their general characteris- 
tics, 2. Their generic divisions, 5. 

Indians, their religious belief, 34. Their 
character, 35. The policy of the 
French and English towards, 65, 68. 

Iroquois family, the, 6. 24. 

Iroquois, the extent of their Conquests, 
6, 575. Their government, 8. Tra- 
ditions of their confederacy, 11. 
Their myths and legends, 13. Their 
intellectual powers, 13. Their arts 
and agriculture, 14. Their forts and 
villages, 14. Their winter life, 16. 
The war-path, 16. Their feasts, 
dances, and religious ceremonies, 18. 
Their pride, 18. They conquer the 
Hurons, 21. Their warlike triumphs, 
22. Their adoption of prisoners, 23. 
Attacked by Champlain, 59. Their 
wars with Canada. 60. Attacked by 
Count Frontenac, 61. Their tyranny, 

77. Inclined to the French alliance, 

78. Their conduct during the French 
war, 130. Their council with Sir 
William Johnson in 1763, 370. They 
join the English in 1 763, 406. Policy 
of the French and English towards 
them. 576. 



628 



INDEX. 



J. 

Jacobs, his desperate courage, 280. 

Jenkins, Lieutenant, captured by the 
Indians, 243. 

Jesuits, the, in Canada, 46. Their mis- 
sions in the Illinois, 517. 

Jogues. his martyrdom. 48. 

Johnson, Sir William, his life and char- 
acter, 80. His expedition against 
Crown Point, 103. Captures Niagara. 
112. His council "with the Iroquois 
in 1763, 370. Threatened with an 
attack from Indians, 372. He per- 
suades the Iroquois to join the Eng- 
lish in 1763, 406. His councils with 
the Indians at Niagara, 456. His 
council with Pontiac, 562. His meas- 
ures to secure the friendship of the 
Iroquois, 577. 

Jonois, Father, arrives at Detroit, 242. 
Befriends the English. 306. His em- 
bassy to Detroit, 310. 

Jumonville. death of, 89. 

L. 

La Butte, sent to Pontiac's camp, 209. 

Lake George, battle of. 103. Lake 
George, 108. 

Lallemant, his martyrdom, 47. 

La Salle, his character, 51. Embarks 
on his enterprise, 51. Discovers the 
Mississippi, 54. His death, 55. 

Le Boeuf, Fort, captured by Indians, 336. 

Lenni Lenape, the, their history and 
character, 26. 

Ligonier, Fort, attacked by Indians, 
331, 338. Its garrison relieved, 355. 

Loftus, Major, his repulse on the Mis- 
sissippi, 531. 

Louisiana, colony of, founded, 55. 

M. 

Mackinaw, Island of, 314. 
Massacre at Michillimackinac, 293. 
M'Dougal, Lieutenant, his embassy to 
Pontiac's camD, 210 



Miamis. the. 29. 

Miami, Fort, its capture, 244. 

Michillimackinac, tidings from, 242. 
The trading routes thither, 2S2. Its 
appearance in 1763, 283. Its origin 
and history, 283. Indians in its neigh- 
borhood, 285. "Warnings of danger 
to its garrison, 293. Massacre at, 
298, 596. Eeoccupied by the Eng- 
lish, 469. 

Military character of the Indians, 169. 

Military life in the forest, 140. 

Minavavana, his speech to Alexander 
Henry, 288. His position and char- 
acter, 291. His speech to the Orta- 
was, 309. 

Missionaries, French and English. 65. 

Mississippi and Missouri, the. 513. 

Mohawk, the, military posts upon, 135. 

Monongahela, the, battle of, 9S. 

Montcalm, Marquis of, captures Os- 
wego and William Henry, 109. His 
death, 124. 

Montmorenci, assault at, 115. 

Moravians, their missions in Pennsyl- 
vania, 421. 

Moravian Indians, perilous situation of, 
422. They retreat to Philadelphia, 
424. Sent to New York, 431. Set- 
tled on the Susquehanna, 445. 

Morris. Captain, his embassy, 469. 

N. 

Neutral Nation, the, 21. 
New Orleans in 1765, 534. 
Neyon, his letter to Pontiac. 403. 
Niagara, Fort, attacked by the Senecas, 
345. 

Niagara, carrying place of, 373. Con- 
course of Indians at, 1764.454. Coun- 
cils held at, 1764, 456. 



0. 

| Ohio, the, Indians of, their alarm at 
French and English encroachment, 

I 90. 



INDEX. 



629 



Ojibwas. the, 30. 

Onondaga, its appearance in 1743, 133. 
Oswego, Tort, its capture, 109. 
Ottawas, the, their character, 30. They 

take possession of Michillimackinac, 

309. 

Ouatanon, Tort, its capture, 243. 
Owens. David, his ferocity, 430. 



P. 

Paris, peace of, 173. News of it reaches 
Detroit, 253. 

Paully. Ensign, captured at Sandusky, 
233. Escapes from the Indians, 260. 

Paxton men, they massacre the Oonas- 
toga Indians, 414, 417. They pre- 
pare to march on Philadelphia, 427. 
They reach Germantown, 437. Me- 
morials of, 613, 617. 

Paxton riots, the, 606, 612. 

Paxton, town of, 412. 

Peace of Paris, 173. News of it reaches 
Detroit, 253. 

Pennsylvania, founded, 71. Frontiers 
of. 325. Condition of Frontiers of, in 
1763, 380. Political dissensions in, 399. 

Penn, William, 71. 

Picquet, Father, 79. 

Pioneers, French and English, 50. 

Pitt. Fort, its origin and position, 325. 
Alarms at, 327. Indian deputation 
at, 333. Preparations for its defence, 
338. General attack upon it, 342. 
Its garrison relieved, 367. 

Pittman, Captain, attempts to ascend 
the Mississippi, 533. 

Philadelphia, alarm in, 433, 440. 

Plot, Indian, defeated, 160. 

Pontiac, his meeting with Eogers, 148. 
His character and political course, 
161, 165. His war messengers, 165. 
His speech at the Eiver Ecorces, 179. 
His ambition and patriotism, 191. 
His treachery at Detroit, 202. He de- 
clares open war on the English, 204. 
He summons the garrison of Detroit, 
219. His speech to the French, 221. 
His commissary department, 224. He 



issues promissory notes, 225. His 
magnanimity, 227. His power over 
his followers, 226, 228. He endeavors 
to gain the alliance of the French, 255. 
His ambuscade at Bloody Bridge, 271. 
He retires to the Maumee, 403. He 
rallies the western tribes, 526. He 
visits the Illinois, 529. His embassy 
to New Orleans, 530, 536. He plun- 
ders La Garantais, 548. Ruin of his 
hopes, 549. His meeting with Cro- 
ghan, 552. His speech to Croghan, 
556. His departure for Oswego, 561. 
His council with Sir William John- 
son, 562. His speech, 565. His visit to 
the Illinois, 1769, 568. His death. 571. 
The vengeance of his followers, 572. 

Pontiac Manuscript, the, 5S8. 

Ponteach, a Tragedy, 581. 

Post, Christian Frederic, his mission to 
the Indians, 128. 

Pottawattamies, the, 30. 

PresquTsle, Fort, its attack and de- 
fence, 245. Its capture, 249. Tidings 
from, reach Fort Pitt, 334. 

Prisoners, escape of, at Detroit, 232. 
Surrendered to Bouquet, 495, 502. 
Their situation in the Indian villages. 
507. 

Prophet, Delaware, the, 158. His speech 

to Croghan, 545. 
Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, their 

treatment of the Indians, 73. 



Q- 

Quakers, the, their conduct towards the 
Indians, 72. Their reluctance to de- 
clare war on the Indians, 390. Their 
blind partiality for Indians, 397. Their 
disputes with the Presbyterians, 441. 

Quebec, battle of, 121. Besieged by the 
English, 113. 

R. 

Rangers, Rogers', 144. 
Reminiscences, of aged Canadians, of 
Detroit. 594. 

AAA* 



630 



INDEX. 



Rogers, Robert, his life and character, 
144. His expedition up the lakes. 
146. His meeting with Pontiac, 148. 
He defends the house of Campau. 
275. 

Royal American Regiment, the, 354. 



S. 

Sandusky, its capture, 238. 

Sault Ste. Marie, 284, 317. 

Scalps, reward offered for, 479. 

Schlosser, Ensign, captured at St. Jo- 
seph's, 240. 

School-house, attack on, 385. 

Schooner, attacks on, near Detroit, 230, 
250, 279. Cannonades Pontiac's camp, 
262. The Indians attempt to burn 
her, 263. 

Senecas, treaty with, 456. 

Settlers, their intrusion upon Indian 
lands, 156. 

Shawanoes, the, their history and char- 
acter, 28. Their desperation, 496. 

Smith, James, his band of riflemen, 393. 
His predatory exploits, 541. 

Smith, Matthew, and his companions, 
413. 

Spotswood, Governor, his plans to 

thwart the French, 86. 
St. Ange de Bellerive, 524. 
St, Joseph's, Eort, captured, 240. 
Ste. Marie, Sault, 284, 317. 
St. Louis, foundation of, 523. 
Stedman, escape of, 375. 
Stewart, Lazarus, 416, 421. 



T. 

Ticonderoga, storming of, 110. 
Totemship, 4. 



Traders, slaughtered by the Indians, 
328. 

Trappers and hunters, 141. 

Trent, Captain, driven from the Ohio, 

88. i ' ■ y^ : -' . 

V. 

Venango, Fort, captured by Indians, 
337. 

Virginia, frontiers of, their condition in 
1763, 379. Her measures of defence, 
392. 

Virginian backwoodsman, his character, 
378. 

W. 

Walking purchase, the, 75. 
"War-belt, the, among the Miamis, 167. 
War-dance, the, 175. 
War-feast, the, 174. 

Washington, his mission to the Ohio, 
87. At the Monongahela, 100. 

Wawatam, his warning to Alexander 
Henry, 294. He rescues Henry from 
captivity, 311. 

Western Indians, their condition and 
temper, 622. 

West, the, French posts in, 55. 

Wilderness, the, its scenery, its popula- 
tion, 131. 

Wilkin s, Major, wreck of his detach- 
ment on Lake Erie, 377. 
William Henry, Fort, its capture, 109. 
.White savage, 70. 

Wolfe, General, lays siege to Quebec, 
113. Scales the Heights of Abraham, 
119. His death, 123. 

Wyandots, the, their condition and chai*- 
acter, 19. Conquered by the Iro- 
quois, 21. 

Wyandots of Detroit, they join Pontiac, 
215. 

Wyoming, massacre at, in 1763, 396. 



b a o a 




> <V s s _ T 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: March 2010 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724) 779-2111 



